


I'm Still Here

by infinitesongbird



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Treasure Planet Fusion, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, BAMF Lance (Voltron), Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Fluff and Angst, Galra are pirates, Happy Ending, Hate at First Sight, Inspired by Treasure Planet (2002), Keith (Voltron) is Bad at Feelings, Keith (Voltron) is a Mess, Keith is Jim, Lance (Voltron) is a Mess, Lance and Keith are Bunkmates, M/M, Minor Character Death, Mutual Pining, Pining Keith/Lance (Voltron), Slow Burn, Space Pirates
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-24
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-15 22:42:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 38,437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28946088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/infinitesongbird/pseuds/infinitesongbird
Summary: The Wastes are all Keith has ever known.For nineteen years, the arid desert is all he's seen of the world; his only reprieve from monotonous existence being his father's fantastical tales of heroic deeds and perilous battles among the stars. He can't help but feel drawn to those stars—their beckoning voices a constant tickle in the back of his mind. He dreams of following their call to adventure, but as the years pass, dreams dwindle and concede to obligation. What were once fantasies of purpose and fulfillment wither away entirely, and Keith has officially resined himself to a life of empty nothingness.Until one day, fate literally comes crashing into Keith's life, and he is swept up into an epic tale of his own.Alternatively: The Treasure Planet au you didn't know you needed ;)
Relationships: Adam/Shiro (Voltron), Keith/Lance (Voltron)
Comments: 88
Kudos: 94





	1. The Wastes

**Author's Note:**

> Hey everyone, I'm Dani! I've been in the fandom for a while, but this is the first fic I've ever gotten the nerve to post. I love Klance, and Treasure Planet is one of my all-time favorite movies, so naturally I had to combine them! I've had to be relatively simplistic with my character listing and tags - I've got a LOT in store for you all, and I don't wanna spoil anything. Tags and characters will be updated as I go! The fic should be around 10 chapters, and I'm hoping to update every other week. 
> 
> *An important note for my Lance fans (hopefully that's all of you!!!), our boy should be joining us around chapter 3, so hang in there!
> 
> If you wanna chat about the fic or Voltron or whatever the heck, my tumblr is [here](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/barnes-n-romanoff)!
> 
> Big thank you to beta readers Danielle, Jacque, Mikaela, and Bre (insta is [ladybb.art](https://www.instagram.com/ladybb.art/?hl=en)—she's an AMAZING artist and a Webtoon editor!), and to editors Sam and Speaks (if ya'll don't already know Speaks... what have you even been doin??? You can find them on Twitter [here](https://twitter.com/speak_swords), on Tumblr [here](https://speakswords.tumblr.com), and on AO3 [here](https://www.archiveofourown.org/users/speaks/pseuds/speaks)!)
> 
> And thanks the most to my mamma, who I'm pretty sure doesn't even know what a Voltron is, but wanted to read this anyways XD

It was on nights like this—nights when the moon was high over The Wastes and Keith’s restless mind clamored for adventure—that his father would tell him about the Pirates.

On this particular night, the two of them sat on the porch of the modest shack they called home; Keith nestled in his father’s lap and gazing up at the bristles on the underside of the man’s chin as he spoke. A cool wind blew through the desert, one that pierced sharply through the thin material of Keith’s sleep shirt, and he shivered, hunkering even further down into the warmth of his dad’s chest. 

“Keith? If you’re cold, we should go inside and—”

“No!” Keith’s arms wound around his father in protest, burrowing into the heat underneath his jacket. “Keep going!”

“Keith—”

“Please?” It was a dirty trick, the puppy-dog eyes, and Keith _knew_ it. He played into it without mercy, pulling back from their embrace just enough to meet his dad’s eyes and throwing in a quivering lip for good measure. “Just a little more? _Pretty_ please?”

For the briefest of moments, Keith thought that he might have lost the battle; but then his father’s concerned expression fell into reluctant amusement. “Alright, alright,” he chuckled, ruffling Keith’s unruly mop of hair. “Keep your helmet on, Space Ranger.” 

Silently celebrating his triumph, Keith dove back into the confines of the man’s jacket, head ducked to hide a grin. Above him, his father sighed, and Keith’s whole body swayed with the movement. 

“Okay, where was—”

“Zarkon’s escaping!” Keith cut in, releasing his father with one arm and cutting it upwards to mimic the effect of a runaway ship. “And the Blade is chasing him, and they’re getting real close, and they really, _really_ gotta get the quintessence before…” Keith trailed off, his head bouncing with his father’s silent laughter. He felt his cheeks warm, and a bashful smile fought its way onto his face. “Sorry. You tell it.”

His father hummed in acknowledgment, and Keith could feel it buzz in the man’s chest. “You sure?” he asked, voice absent of teasing or mockery. “You can if you—”

“ _Dad_ ,” Keith pleaded—because he didn’t _want_ to tell it; he didn’t _want_ to ruin their sacred nighttime tradition. “ _Please_.”

There was a pause, and Keith held his breath, listening to the sound of the wind as it rushed through the emptiness of The Wastes. 

When his father spoke, his voice was lowered once more, as if to not disturb their little bubble. “Captain Zarkon was escaping, but the Blade was hot on his tail.” Keith released a contented breath, snuggling ever closer. His favorite part was coming up— _soon_ , he told himself. “Cut off from his crew and nowhere to go, it was only a matter of moments before the Blade would catch up. They’d finally be able to capture Zarkon and end his reign of terror.”

“Or so they thought,” Keith whispered.

“Or so they thought,” his father agreed. Keith smiled as a kiss was pressed to his hair. “But Zarkon had his tricks—”

“Captain Zarkon,” Keith recited in a voice hushed with awe, “Vanishing without a trace.”

“That’s right,” his father continued, unbothered by the interruption. “After years of waiting for this very moment, the Blade finally had Zarkon surrounded. Commander Kolivan ordered his men to secure the pirate’s ship, but before they could— _blip!_ Captain Zarkon’s ship had vanished into thin air.”

Keith’s fists twisted into the material of his father’s shirt. “Say the last part,” he implored, his voice no more than a whisper.

“Zarkon was never seen or heard from again, and though many brave warriors and adventurers have tried, none have been able to find him or his treasure. Some say that Zarkon went into hiding, and that he’s biding his time till it’s safe to come out. Others say that overexposure to quintessence drove him mad— _killed_ him, even. And yet, there are a few…” He trailed off, and Keith screwed his eyes shut, preparing himself— _here it comes—_

“There are a few who would tell a different tale, on nights just like this: when the wind is high and fantastical stories can hide under the cover of darkness.” His father drew him closer, pressing his lips into Keith’s hair and making their little bubble even smaller. “They whisper of rumors from the farthest reaches of the galaxy, from those very dark corners of the universe where Zarkon’s loyal followers still hide. Rumors of a _world’s_ worthof riches; trophies of a lifetime of plundering and deceit. A lost trove of treasures hidden from all but Zarkon—hidden, even, from those closest to him. A place called—”

“Treasure Planet,” Keith breathed. He could see it in his mind’s eye; fields and _fields_ overflowing with gold and rubies and emeralds and glinting purple quintessence. 

“You know it, ace.”

They sat in silence for a few seconds and Keith reluctantly pried his eyes open, trailing a hand absently along the leathery inside of his father’s jacket. In his mind, he was still worlds away: diving through mountains of gold and planting a flag with his name on the biggest mound, just like he always saw the explorers do in those old films his dad liked. 

“I’m gonna find it,” he muttered, dazedly. 

“What?”

Keith blinked, as if coming out of a dream. “‘m gonna find it. Treasure Planet.”

His father chuckled, but Keith barely heard. He drew back, staring out at the incomprehensible vastness of space before him. It was yet another thing he loved about growing up in The Wastes (as if the three-headed lizards and the neon pink desert flowers and the wind in his hair weren’t enough). Keith _lived_ for the crystal clear nights when he could blink up at thousands of stars—stretching on and on as far as the eye could see—and wonder if they could hear the song of longing in his heart. 

Extracting a hand from the safe warmth of his father’s coat, Keith reached overhead, imagining he could touch the glittering specks lightyears away. “I’ll be up there, someday,” he vowed. “I’ll pilot my own ship and be the greatest adventurer there ever was, and I’ll tell my whole class I found Treasure Planet and Jimmy can _eat a rock_.”

“ _Keith_ ,” his father chastised, but there was something wrong with his voice, something that sounded suspiciously like… 

“Dad?” Keith asked, his eyes widening in panic. “Why are you crying?”

“‘M not, ace, I’m just—” He drew a hand across his eyes, and Keith turned fully in his lap, reaching up to take his father’s wet face in his hands. 

“I’m sorry,” Keith babbled, not entirely sure what he was apologizing for but instantly terrified and desperate to soothe. “Please don’t cry, Dad, I’m sorry—”

“Hey, baby boy.” His hands were taken in a larger, gentler grip, and squeezed ever so lightly. “You didn’t do anything wrong. You got nothing to apologize for, you hear?”

Keith’s chin wobbled. “Then why are you sad?”

“‘M not sad, darlin’, it’s just—” he pressed one kiss to each of Keith’s palms. “You remind me so much of your mamma sometimes, it scares me.”

“It scares you?”

Overcome with emotion, his father shook his head and swallowed thickly before pulling Keith into a crushing embrace. “I just miss her, is all,” he finally managed, voice rough with tears.

It was on nights like this when Keith would look up at the stars and wonder how his heart could ache so much for someone he’d never known.

...

It was on days like this—days when the sun beat down mercilessly on The Wastes and Keith’s restless mind _sang_ for adventure—that he would _soar_.

The ground zipped by under the board of his solar surfer, various plants and rocks blurring into the beige desert floor. Wind whipped through his hair, pulling loose strands from his short ponytail and sending them into his eyes and mouth. He grunted, adjusting his course so that he was flying _into_ the wind, and the pesky loose hairs flew directly backward. With a grin, Keith raised his chin, closing his eyes against the onslaught of wind that rippled and pulsed through his jacket. Warm sunlight beat down on him, and, tightening his grip on his surfer’s handlebars, he allowed himself to bend backward. Following the movement of his body, the surfer ascended, its sails filling with wind. The ascent brought about an all-too-familiar swoop in Keith’s gut, and he crowed with glee, voice cracking under unbridled euphoria and adrenaline. 

Up here—weightless, twisting and twirling, _flying_ —nothing _mattered_. Up here, there were no responsibilities, no inns to upkeep, no academies to get kicked out of, no fathers to disappoint. No crippling, aching, stifling _restlessness_ that accompanied the prospect of a lifetime spent in The Wastes. Up here, it was just Keith and the sky, and he could _almost_ ignore the crushing weight of the real world down below.

Still bent backward, Keith let the motion turn into a full 360 degree loop, sniggering as he remembered the last time he’d taken his cousin for a ride and tried the same thing. 

_Sickening,_ Shiro had groaned after they’d landed, doubled over and trying not to retch. _Don’t fucking do that again, Keith, I’m serious._

“How about this, Shiro,” Keith mumbled, the wind ripping the words from his mouth as he stepped back onto the accelerator. His surfer surged forward, expelling a particularly forceful jet of fire in its wake, and Keith’s responding yell was lost to a gale. Tears pricked at his eyes and he wasn’t sure that it was only the breeze; not when his heart was threatening to burst with exhilaration. 

_This is it,_ he thought, tears inadvertently spilling free from his eyes and running down wind-chapped cheeks. _I’ll never be happier than this._

_You know it can’t last,_ a barbarous part of his brain supplied, unbidden. _You gotta land sooner or later._ For a moment, Keith’s smile faltered; but he quickly pushed the thought from his mind. Such thoughts weren’t meant for these priceless moments of freedom. Such thoughts weren’t meant for his time on the solar surfer—not when it was just Keith and the sky and the world was his own.

Of course, the universe was always quick to remind him that the world was, in fact, _not_ his own, and that his invaluable moments of freedom— _cherished moments of Keith and the sky_ —were only fleeting glimpses of a life that he did not have. 

As the sound of pursuing police sirens cut over the wind, Keith felt the smile slip from his face.

_Yeah,_ he thought bitterly, reluctantly easing his heel onto his breaks and slowing to a stop. _Always gotta land sooner or later._

…

The cops were dicks. 

They weren’t dicks because they did their job. Keith would be the first to admit that he was a grade-A, first-class _fuck-up_. He tried his best where it counted, he really _did_ ; but more often than not, boredom manifested itself in ways that were seen as unsavory in the eyes of the law. It was the law’s _job_ to come down on people like him. 

But this was excessive.

“I was a _mile_ outside the boundary,” Keith growled, wrenching an arm out of one of the officers’ bruising grips. The rough manhandling only added to their dickishness—their little robot clampy-hands fucking _hurt_. “This is _bullshit_ —”

The officer on Keith’s right whirred angrily, rolling forward on its singular wheel to come to an abrupt halt in front of him and forcing Keith to stop in his tracks. A compartment towards the thing’s middle slid open and inwards to reveal the bot’s washing mechanism, a tiny metal rod extending out of it to wave soap suds in Keith’s face, who recoiled with a glare.

“Watch your mouth, boy,” the thing droned at him, managing to sound impressively derisive considering its monotone, tinny voice. “Or I’ll be forced to scrub it clean.”

“Good one,” the other cop monotoned, and Keith rolled his eyes as they high-fived each other over his head. _Assholes._

The cop in front of him withdrew its cleaning rod and snapped the compartment shut. “Keep moving, space-case,” it said, and the bot behind Keith shoved him forward a good deal harder than necessary. Keith turned to narrow his eyes at it over his shoulder, and his gaze fell instead on his well-worn solar surfer, trailing behind as the cop tugged it roughly along by one of the sail’s ropes.

“Careful with that,” Keith grumbled, some of the fight leaving his shoulders as flashes of lost freedom shone behind his eyes.

The cop dragging it laughed its tinniest, dumbest-sounding laugh. “Not like you’ll be needing it anytime soon, boy.”

Falling back into step, Keith returned his gaze forward, jaw clenched so hard that his head pounded with the pressure. 

…

As sick as Keith may have been of the Benbow Inn, seeing it come into view as they rounded a canyon wall was like a breath of fresh air. 

Fortunately, the cops had seemed satisfied that Keith had opted to keep his mouth shut, and they hadn’t tried to talk to him again for the rest of the walk. _Un_ fortunately, they’d taken to blathering on to one another about upgrades and central processing units and _hey, did you see that new officer? The wheel on_ her _—am I right?_

Keith honestly wasn’t sure why they’d bothered to take him home when a couple hours alone in a room with these two would’ve broken his spirit just as easily. His soul would have still withered away, but at least it would’ve been quick; not like his current, prolonged, torturous… he hesitated to call it a life.

_Existence._

On the path ahead, a three-headed lizard hissed and scampered from its suntanning perch on a rock and into a dark crevice in the canyon wall, clearly disturbed by the cops’ ruckus. Keith could sympathize—both with the sensation of being disturbed and with the desire to find a nice hole to crawl into. As relieved as he’d been to see the misshapen outline of the Benbow (they’d been walking for what felt like _hours_ and Keith’s feet were starting to ache and he wanted this whole ordeal to be _over_ ), the sight of his home also came with a sense of dread. It had been building in Keith’s gut throughout the walk, but now, as he looked upon the Benbow’s rotting front door, apprehension hit him with a stinging urgency. 

A whole, _who-knows-how-many-miles-long_ walk, and he still hadn’t conjured up a single thing to say to his dad. 

Guilt grew into nausea, and Keith was so wrapped up in it that he nearly jumped out of his skin when both cops grabbed him by the arms. The second he realized what was happening, he was squirming in their grip, struggling against their steel clamps and dragging his feet in an attempt to stop their trajectory. 

“Wait, guys—please don’t do this, we can go in through the back—”

“Hm,” the bot to his left interrupted, tapping its free arm against its LED face in faux consideration. “No. Front door is much more fun.”

“More effective,” agreed the cop on Keith’s right. “Teaches a lesson.”

Keith dug his heels into the cracked desert ground, grunting as pain shot up his leg. “All you’re gonna do is make a scene!”

“We’re in The Wastes, Kogane. Not much else to make a scene about.”

This time, neither of them said anything when Keith cussed, both of them singularly focused on shoving him hard through the swinging front door. 

The Benbow Inn’s restaurant fell silent as Keith entered, falling painfully to his knees and scraping his palms against the rough wooden floor as he attempted to catch himself. Unbidden, his face flushed with hot humiliation. He straightened, trying to regain what little dignity he had left by dusting his hands on his pants. Behind him, the sound of wheels on wood came to a stop.

Keith made the grave mistake of glancing out at the restaurant as he stood, and the corners of his eyes pricked with mortified tears. He really should have been used to this sort of thing by now (it wasn’t as if this _wasn’t_ becoming something of a regular occurrence), but the sight of every single one of the Inn’s residents staring at him with gaping mouths and wide eyes was… well… 

He swallowed thickly, attempting to look away; and in doing so, he met a haggard, drained expression from across the room. Keith’s hands curled at his sides, and he averted his eyes, shame too potent to allow himself to hold his father’s gaze.

It was one thing for the Benbow’s residents to stare at him like he was some kind of _freakshow_ on display. It affected him, sure—much more than he’d often like to believe. But the look on his father’s face? That was an entirely unique kind of gut-churning, mind-numbing, _soul-crushing_ heartbreak.

As he listened to the sound of familiar heavy boots thudding wearily over wooden planks, Keith trapped his bottom lip between his teeth, biting at the chapped skin there until he could taste his own metallic blood. He didn’t dare look up when the footsteps came to a halt in front of him, opting instead to study the fascinating little groove in the wood at his feet.

A warm, callused hand came to cover his own, sliding over Keith’s gloved palms before giving his bare fingers a small squeeze. “You okay, ace?” The question was gentle, hushed; purposefully intimate in a way that ensured none of the Inn’s patrons could hear. 

And this— _this_ —was what Keith hated the most. 

It was as if no matter what stunts he pulled—no matter how stupid or reckless or un _controllable_ he was—his father had an unlimited supply of patience. It should have made Keith feel loved, and it _did…_ but it also made him feel _terrible_. 

He flinched away from the contact, and his father’s hand retreated. Another pang of guilt shot through his chest, but regardless, he forced out, “‘M fine.”

There was a brief moment of silence that felt like it stretched for an eternity. When Keith’s father finally spoke, his voice was raised, addressing the restaurant at large. “‘Scuse the interruption, ladies and gents. Please, enjoy your meals.”

Or, as Keith might have put it: _fuck off and mind your own damn business._

Slowly, tentative conversations picked back up, voices hushed and nervous. Keith didn’t have to be a genius to guess what they were talking about. 

“Officers,” his father greeted, tone reserved and formal. “What seems to be the problem?”

One of the cops behind Keith whirred. “Found this one beyond the boundary—”

“A mile,” Keith muttered, petulantly. 

“—and well into restricted territory—”

“A _mile_.”

Something shoved him in the shoulder blade, and Keith whirled to face his aggressor, fists coming up to hip height in an aborted fighting stance. 

“A mile into the restricted zone is still _restricted_ , boy.”

_Touch me again_ , Keith thought, _and I take my knife to your wheel, and then we’ll see what that new officer with the nice wheel thinks of_ your _shitty rims._

Out loud (because Keith had learned the hard way that threatening a cop was more trouble than it was worth) he said, “ _Fuck_ you.” Okay, so… cussing at a cop, not _much_ better, but still. It definitely made him _feel_ a little better. “You two were on me, like, the second I crossed over—”

“Keith—”

“—like you were just waiting in the _bushes_ for me, I mean you guys _have_ to have better things to—”

“Keith!”

His father’s voice startled him from his tirade, so much so that Keith forgot that he’d resolved not to meet his eyes. The second he did, he wished he’d kept his mouth shut—wished he’d just taken the cops’ crap and shut the hell up for once. Anything to avoid the helpless concern in those eyes that slammed into Keith like a blow to the stomach. 

With a sigh, his dad wrenched his gaze away and turned back to the bots, who waited in smug silence. “There a penalty, officers? Sounds like the kid might’ve gotten a little… carried away. You know how it is to be young and to feel a surfer beneath your…” He trailed off, eyes widening in mortification. “I—I meant, uh…”

“Awkward,” a cop-bot hummed. 

“Foot, meet mouth,” the other agreed.

And, okay—the whole situation might have sucked, and Keith might have been a terrible son—but he really, _really_ loved his dad. He brought a fist to his mouth, coughing to cover a laugh, and his father shot him a chagrined glance. “Uh… sorry. I only meant—he’s a kid, y’know? Maybe we let him off with a warning?”

Keith scratched the back of his neck, casting a subtle peek around the restaurant at the patrons, who looked like they were trying very hard to appear busy eating. 

“Hm,” one of the things considered, and finally, after an agonizingly long pause, it hummed, extending a ticket from a hidden compartment. Keith’s father leaped forward eagerly to take it. “He doesn’t have many warnings left, Mr. Kogane.”

“Last one,” the other offered.

“Then, it’s a straight ticket to the slammer.”

“The pen.”

“The bar life.”

“The—”

“Jail,” Keith growled, striding forward to snatch the ticket from his father’s hands. “We get it. Now, are we done here?”

“What my son is _trying_ to say,” Owen hurried, shooting a pointed look at Keith, “—is that it _won’t_. Happen. Again. Right, ace?”

The ticket in Keith’s hand was inadvertently crumpled into a tiny ball. “Right.”

If cop-bots had humanoid features, Keith was pretty sure they’d both be grinning wickedly at him. Instead, they stood unassumingly, a strange pattern of lights flickering across their LED faces. “Right… what, boy?” one of them asked. The question almost sounded innocent in its expressionless, mechanical voice, but Keith knew when he was being mocked.

He swallowed, part of him wishing that Shiro would hurry up and _get here_ before he did something stupid. “It, uh—” he cleared his throat, forcing himself through the words. “It won’t happen again.” 

“See that it doesn’t,” the one closest to him responded, and Keith stood in place as his father shuffled a few feet over towards the door, subtly herding the cop-bots out.

“Thank you for your time, gentlemen.” Despite his dad’s clear attempt at a lower volume, his voice still carried across the few feet between them.

“It’s no problem, Mr. Kogane.” Owen Kogane’s voice might have been hushed, but the cop-bots had very little in terms of volume regulation, and their words cut clearly through the restaurant. “We see his type all the time. Burnouts—”

“Dropouts,” the other supplied.

“Miscreants.”

“Degenerates.”

One of them swiveled slightly on their wheel, turning to face Keith. “Losers,” the bot smugly intoned. In his mind’s eye, Keith could _see_ its triumphant, shit-eating grin.

Before Keith could do or say anything he could regret, the cops brought their metal clampers up to salute the restaurant at large and rolled out over the threshold. The door flapped back and forth in their wake, squeaking on its hinges; and it was only then that Keith registered how quiet the restaurant had once again fallen. He whipped around, incensed and _raring_ for a fight, and his ire was enough to send the restaurant exploding into hurried conversation. 

“Keith—” That hand was back on his, and Keith instinctively ripped his own away. He didn’t need this right now; didn’t _need_ his father’s kindness making him feel worse than he already did, making him feel like maybe all those things the cops had said about him were true. 

“‘M gonna get my apron on,” Keith muttered, roughly. “Just—I need five minutes in the kitchen, and then I’m fine.”

“ _Keith_ —”

“Can you just grab my surfer?” he asked, because he really didn't want to hear whatever it was his father wanted to say, and he _really_ needed to get away from all these _eyes_. “Those assholes left it outside, it’s probably gonna get stolen if it just—”

“Darlin’.” 

Keith swallowed, breathing heavily and high in his chest as his chin was guided upwards towards eyes he still refused to meet. 

“We’ll talk about this later, okay? For now, why don’t you take the rest of the day and cool off?”

That _certainly_ caught Keith’s attention, surprise and heartbreak simultaneously flaring up in his chest—because if he couldn’t work his shift, if he couldn’t even help his own father, then what _good_ was he?

_Degenerate. Burnout. Loser._

“Dad,” he pleaded, meeting the worn, disheartened gaze he’d tried so desperately to avoid. “ _Please_ , I can work, I just need—I—you gotta let me work…”

He trailed off as his father shook his head. “I appreciate it, darlin’, but I need you to cool off. It’s not a request, you hear?”

Feeling an unexpectedly strong surge of betrayal (and not quite understanding where it had come from), Keith reeled backward, eyes narrowing as he turned sharply on his heel, leaving his father to stand unanswered and alone at the door. He cut through the restaurant, ignoring the judgemental stares burning into his back, and pushed aside the curtain to the kitchen so hard that the thing nearly detached from its rail. 

He growled as he yanked it closed behind him, letting himself flop onto a bare counter, his palms pressed against the peeling plaster on its surface. His head fell limply between his arms, and his fingers curled painfully into the counter. 

_If you’d just been watching where you were fucking going—If you weren’t such a damn space-case—If you didn’t have to show off all the—_

“Hey, jailbird.”

Keith jumped at the unexpected voice, wincing as he slammed the top of his head against the cabinet above him. It was his own fault, really; he should have checked to make sure the kitchen was empty before launching straight into a breakdown. He fisted desperately at the wetness under his eyes, leveling a hard glare at the person he least wanted to see, standing by the stoves and fixing him with a cruel smile as he flipped a patty. 

“Hey, shit-for-brains,” Keith bit back (because _seriously,_ James was the _last_ fucking thing he needed right now).

Unfortunately for Keith, the petulant name-calling didn’t deter the other boy quite as drastically as it did when they were younger. Instead, James merely clicked his tongue in a _tsk-tsk_ sort of way, bringing up a hand to wipe a line of grease onto the front of his Benbow staff apron.

“Gotta say, that was _quite_ the entrance, Kogane. Always did have a flair for the dramatic.”

“Fuck off,” Keith snapped, snatching a bright pink _guyvva_ fruit from the counter and turning towards the stairs to the Kogane’s private living quarters.

“No, I mean—” James puffed out his cheeks and blew a noisy breath out through pursed lips. “ _Really_. Your dad must be _so_ proud.”

Keith… wasn’t entirely sure what happened. One second, his back had been turned to his coworker, _guyvva_ fruit in hand; the next, his vision was clouded with red rage, and his hands were fisted in the collar of James’ shirt. The _guyvva_ fruit fell to the floor with a dull thud, rolling under the opposite counter. 

“You _ever_ ,” Keith growled, hefting the utter _asshole_ in his grip back against the stove, “—say something like that again, and I’ll break your nose a second time, Griffin. You hear me?”

Under the weight of Keith’s vicious glare, James shrank pathetically back, hovering dangerously over the stove. His hands scrambled over Keith's in an attempt to steady himself; and he gave a feeble whimper, nodding his head in vigorous confirmation that he’d understood. 

Satisfied with the sniveling mess beneath his fingertips, Keith yanked the other boy forward, releasing his bruising grip on James’ collar the second he was righted. Keith tapped him lightly on the chest—delighting in the way James flinched—and bent to retrieve his lost fruit from the floor. As he turned to walk off towards the stairs, he tossed the _guyvva_ once into the air, catching it in one fluid motion. “You take care now, Jimmy,” he called without turning, hoping that the careful casualness of his voice was as intimidating as he meant for it to be. 

Judging by the dead silence left in his wake, he guessed he’d probably succeeded. 

Keith took the stairs two at a time, the proximity to his room overwhelming him with a desperate need to get _away_. He was thankful not to have to run into any guests up here. Though still a part of the Inn, the Kogane residence was in its own little turret, tucked snuggly above the Benbow’s kitchen and accessible only to himself, Shiro, and his father—the only three people with keys to the thick wooden door separating the living quarters from the stairs. 

After a second spent rifling through deep pockets for his key, Keith was finally shouldering his way through the door and into the room beyond. He was greeted by the familiar sight of two thin beds, each pushed snugly up against the walls to his left and right. A modest-sized fireplace was carved into the wall opposite the door, and Keith immediately made a beeline towards it, skirting around the small dining table in the center of the room as he did so. Though the day had been warm, the sun was due to set any minute, and nights in The Wastes typically brought with them a chill that easily seeped through the Benbow’s thin glass-paned windows. Reaching above the fireplace’s mantle, Keith procured a box of matches, striking one with fingers that still shook with anger.

Once he’d managed to get a small flame licking heartily at a log, Keith threw himself down onto his bed, shoes and all. His father could scold him for it later, but at that moment, he couldn’t have cared less. 

Curling his fingers into scratchy woolen blankets, he inhaled deeply, trying and failing to remember the breathing exercise Shiro had taught him for when he felt too angry to feel anything else. _Three counts inhale, five—no, it was five inhale, three to ex—wait, it was… fuck._

Keith sat up, rubbing frustratedly at his eyes. Below him, the muted sounds of the restaurant’s dinner rush wafted up through the floorboards to add to the already clattered cacophony of his mind. Guests chattered amongst one another in muted, indistinguishable voices, plates and silverware clinked musically; and all Keith could think about was his father, stuck working the dinner shift alone (Griffin sure as _shit_ didn’t count) until Shiro showed up for work. 

Downstairs, something clattered and thumped in the kitchen, and Keith angrily fished the _guyvva_ fruit from his pocket, ripping into its skin with the hand-me-down pocket-knife he’d received from his father on his fourteenth birthday. He’d hoped that the fruit might be something of a distraction; but the more he peeled, the more determined his mind seemed to conjure up the image of James’ condescending expression. The other boy’s words cycled around his head, evoking red-hot fury that obscured any semblance of rational thought. 

Fuck Griffin. Fuck Griffin and his superiority complex and his stupid face and his—

It was only when the edge of the blade missed the fruit and instead sliced painfully over his thumb that Keith was given pause. Dropping his knife and the tattered remains of the _guyvva_ to his sheets, he cradled his trembling hands to his chest, sucking irately at the shallow cut on his thumb and rattling off every expletive in his vocabulary. 

When Shiro found him almost an hour later, Keith was lying on his back, hands folded across his stomach and fuming up at the ceiling. He didn’t bother sparing his cousin a glance, having expected the visit sooner or later. The end of the bed dipped as Shiro sat gingerly near his feet, as if Keith were a wild animal that would bite him at the slightest disturbance. 

“You wanna talk about it?”

Keith shrugged in response.

Shiro sighed, running a hand through locks of fine white hair. “I take it you’re not working dinner?”

Keith shrugged again, and after a second’s pause, Shiro snorted. “Lucky me. Quality time with Griffin.”

The remark pulled a surprised huff out of Keith. “He’s feeling like more of an asshole than usual, if that gets you any more excited,” he grumbled, fiddling with the straps of his fingerless gloves.

A burst of laughter escaped his cousin, and Keith peaked out from behind his hands to catch the amusement crinkling around Shiro’s eyes. “It definitely doesn’t, but thanks.”

Keith bit his lip, returning his gaze to the ceiling. Shiro stayed perfectly silent, waiting for him to decide what and how much to share. It was one of the things he loved most about his cousin—he was one of the only adults Keith knew who didn’t constantly expect him to talk. 

“I’m assuming my dad told you?” he finally asked, his jaw tight.

“Yeah.” Shiro gave Keith’s ankle a light squeeze. “Pulled me aside as I came in and—yeah. I got the idea.”

“I was a mile out, Shiro. Those cops—”

“I know, Keith.” Shiro regarded him with so much love that Keith couldn’t bear to look, opting instead to turn his head to stare at the fire crackling to his right. 

“It’s like they—they _want_ me to fail, Shiro, and then Griffin just knows exactly which buttons to press, and I—”

He cut himself off, scrubbing at his eyes and not entirely sure when he’d started crying, but desperate to stop.

Before he could protest, Shiro was standing, moving to sit on the edge of the bed next to Keith’s chest. “I know,” he repeated, empathy shining fiercely in his eyes. Somewhere in the back of Keith’s mind, he thought _no, you don’t, you don’t know at all; you’re the Garrison’s golden boy, you don’t know_ anything _._

“I’m so sorry, bud,” Shiro was saying, arms open as he leaned in for a hug. “I can’t imagine how you feel—”

Abruptly, Keith sat up, leaning away from the embrace and hunching over to wipe hastily at his wet eyes. “You should get to work.”

“Keith,” Shiro whispered, and _fuck_ —Keith _hated_ the raw concern in his cousin’s voice. 

He straightened up, forcing an attempt at a smile onto his face and willing himself to stop crying long enough to get rid of him. “‘M fine, Shiro. _Really_. It was just some asshole cops. No big deal.”

Shiro looked like he wanted to say something else, so Keith plowed on. “Not like anyone got hurt, right? Still in one piece,” he reassured, even as the depths of his soul screamed _I’m breaking apart, Shiro; I’m falling to pieces and I don’t know how to put everything back together, I don’t know what’s wrong with me, please help me, help me helpmehelpmehelpmehelp—_

“I’m _okay_ , Shiro.”

The disbelief coloring his cousin’s face hurt almost as much as it did to picture the heartbreak on his father’s; but after a few seconds, something resolute (albeit mournful) overtook his features. 

“Okay.” Shiro stood, and Keith knew with a certainty that his cousin wasn’t going to push him into a conversation he didn’t want to have. He wasn’t sure if he appreciated or loathed the space at this point. Shiro had always had an uncanny knack for being able to handle Keith’s wild emotions with delicacy. Lately, he’d become more distant, approaching Keith with the same cautious hesitance that one might use with a wild animal. _He doesn’t know how to talk to me anymore,_ Keith thought; and the very second the thought crossed his mind, he berated his own stupidity. _No, you just don’t_ let _him talk to you anymore._

He supposed he couldn’t actually blame Shiro. All his cousin had ever done was try. It was _Keith_ who screwed up over and over; Keith who acted out with increasing frequency as he withered away out in The Wastes. It was Keith who couldn’t stand to continue to look the people he loved in the eye sans explanation or reason. 

It was Keith who was struggling to imagine why he deserved the love of people he only hurt.

Jaw working back and forth in an attempt to stave off tears— _just a little longer, the more okay you seem the faster he’ll leave_ —Keith pretended to busy himself with picking a loose thread out of his blanket, watching Shiro’s slow retreat to the door from the corner of his eye. 

Shiro’s gait was slow and measured, weighted with unspoken words, and Keith was unsurprised when his cousin hesitated and turned back to him, eyebrows furrowed in concern. Keith quickly averted his gaze.

“Keith, I—I just…”

The loose thread snagged on another, and Keith gritted his teeth, pinching it between his nails. 

Shiro sighed, long and deep, and Keith could practically _hear_ whatever he’d been about to say vanish with the exhale. “I love you,” was what his cousin finally settled on. “No matter what, I love you, okay?”

A hot tear spilled out of Keith’s right eye. _Fuck, dammit, fuck fuck_ fuck. So much for keeping it together. His whole face felt as if it might explode from trying to contain the waterworks within. When he tried to open his mouth to respond, it felt as if someone had welded his jaw shut. _Fuck,_ he thought, fingers trembling so violently that he lost his grip on the thread. _I love you too, Shiro. I never meant to hurt you._

As the heavy wooden door swung shut, sealing Keith away in his solitude, he was overwhelmed with the desire for Shiro to hear the words that refused to leave him. He wrenched open his jaw, determined to throw them across the barrier that separated them—across to the retreating _creaks_ of his cousin’s footsteps on the stairs. 

Instead, the words left him in the form of a sob, gut-wrenchingly painful, and he was forced to throw a hand over his mouth to stifle the sound. Beyond the door, the footsteps briefly paused in their descent, and after a second’s deliberation, they continued on their way. 

Keith pressed his hand harder over his face, taking care to cover his mouth and nose (lest he be heard by the restaurant's occupants down below), and wept.

…

When he awoke, the room was fully dark, save for the fireplace crackling steadily in the hearth. The distant sounds of chatter had faded, leaving behind the sporadic clanking of dishware as it was gathered into the kitchen. A glance around the room told him that it wasn’t so late that his father had come up to bed. Feeling somewhat disoriented from his impromptu nap, Keith rooted underneath his pillow for the wrist comm he so seldom used. The brightness of its screen nearly blinded him as it flickered to life, and he forced himself to squint at the barrage of messages vying for his attention. He winced when he realized that most of them were from his father, dated earlier in the day—a collection of voice messages and video mail, undoubtedly worried demands as to where he’d been. Unsure if it was possible to feel any _worse_ , Keith swiped the notifications away until a blank screen read _22:50 hours_. He’d slept well past closing time, then. 

Down in the kitchen, a plate clattered loudly in the sink, and Keith allowed himself to lie there for a moment, picturing an angry James stuck alone on dish duty while his father and Shiro made sure the restaurant shone in preparation for breakfast hours the next morning. Another angry clatter had James swearing in pain, and despite the day’s events, Keith found himself smiling, wordlessly raising a middle finger in his coworker’s direction. 

_That’s what you_ get _,_ he thought; and the vindication pulsing through his body was enough to launch him out of bed. On an automatic impulse, he grabbed his quilt, dragging it around his shoulders as his feet led him towards the window.

Outside, the stars twinkled brightly in a clear night’s sky, beckoning Keith onto the wooden ledge outside his window. He stepped gingerly onto it, taking care to keep his footsteps light as it groaned with his weight. Although he was cautious, there wasn’t a doubt in his mind that the old ledge would hold. He had, after all, been making this climb since he was nine and his father had inherited The Benbow Inn from Hinoshi and Annora Shirogane. Keith had developed a strange (and perhaps misplaced) confidence that the stars watched over him as he shimmied over the ledge around the rooftop, protecting him from the possibility of a bone-shattering fall to the ground below. Rationally, he knew it was a stupid notion, but when he was surrounded by hundreds of thousands of stars, he couldn’t help but feel… safe. Seen.

Keith moved around the edge—the toes of his boots sending debris cascading off the ledge—until he reached a flat overhang that jutted out under one of the restaurant’s high windows. Releasing a breath he hadn’t even realized he’d been holding, he fell into a crouch, wedging himself into the little nook so that he was sitting with his back pressed up against the glass pane. He’d usually dangle his legs from the edge, but tonight, he bent them towards his chest, pulling his blanket over his knees and tucking it underneath his chin. 

This spot had been Keith’s favorite part of The Benbow since they’d moved in. It was only accessible from the Kogane residence, which meant that he’d never run into anyone else up here. It was _his_ , and his alone. His place to come to when he felt like he wasn’t enough. His place to come to when he felt like he wanted _more_ , wanted to _be_ more.

His place to come to when he wanted to sit under the light of trillions of stars and feel like a _part_ of something as great and vast as the universe.

_Just me and a universe full of stars._

Sometimes, Keith wondered if anyone out there, far, _far_ beyond the planet Montressor—someone just as achingly lonely as he was—ever looked back. He could picture them, sitting exactly as he was now, gazing up at so many of the same stars and starving for a chance to be seen. 

_You’re not alone,_ Keith thought, closing his eyes as an unbidden tear trickled quickly down his cheek. _Whoever you are, you’re not alone._

The sound of conversation from within the Benbow’s restaurant grew more distinguishable, and Keith wrenched his eyes open, staring off into the distance along the Inn’s landing pad and runway. For a few seconds, he was unable to pick out more than a couple short snippets of conversation, but as the voices drew closer, Keith turned to peer down into the restaurant, unsurprised to find his father and Shiro moving to clean a table directly below his window perch.

“—go easy on him,” Shiro was saying, pulling a rag from his shoulder and a bottle of cleaner from his utility belt. “That’s all I’m saying.”

Keith scowled. Great. Fantastic. Of _course_ they were talking about him.

He watched as his father dropped heavily into a chair, head falling into his hands. Feather-light, Keith brought the tips of his fingers to rest against the glass panel separating them. _I should be down there,_ he thought, watching Shiro place his cybernetic hand on his father’s back. _That should be me down there, making him feel better. I’m his son._

A chill ran over him, and he shivered, retracting his exposed hand back into the comfort of his blanket. _They wouldn’t want you down there anyway. You just bring them down. It’s your fault. All your fault._

Another wickedly sharp breeze cut through him, teasing his hair off of his forehead and invading his warm cocoon. Shooting a final glance at the two men below, he turned back to the stars, unable to hear his father’s muffled response and feeling—for the first time in his life—as if he were intruding in his own sanctuary. 

Feeling distinctly out-of-place, he’d just made up his mind to trek the short distance back to his room when his father’s voice stopped him.

“—just so _scared_ , Shiro. He’s all I have left.”

Keith’s throat tightened.

“It’s inevitable,” his father continued. “And when he’s gone, I—I won’t…” he trailed off on a sob, and Keith felt as if he was going to be sick. He hadn’t heard his father cry like this in years, and his heart ached as he tried to decipher those words. It wasn’t as if Keith would ever _leave_ him, so why—

It hit him with sudden clarity, and it was so _obvious_ that he couldn’t help the bitter scoff that left him. _Right_. What was it that Officer Dipshit had said? _Straight ticket to the slammer._

Today had been his last free pass. One more slip-up, and goodbye to what little freedom he possessed.

If only he didn’t feel like he was running on borrowed time; like another fuck-up was simply inevitable, and he was just biding his time until the day he let everyone down for good.

Down below, Shiro’s voice interrupted Keith’s self-deprecating spiral. “You’ll have me and Adam,” Shiro offered, gently. The words made Keith feel strangely bitter, which in turn made him feel even worse. He should have felt _beyond_ grateful that Shiro would be around for his father even when he wouldn’t, yet at the same time, it stung not to hear Shiro jump to his defense—not to even _try_ to deny the possibility that Keith might be carted off in cuffs. 

Something ugly reared its head within Keith’s chest, and he returned his attention to the stars, feeling cold in a way that the desert chill was not responsible for. 

“I know, Shiro. You’re a good kid.” As he listened, Keith brought his chin to his knees, tears pressing urgently against the corners of his eyes. “It’s just… so _hard_ , lately. What with cash bein’ so tight, and—and The Benbow…”

Keith frowned at the sudden change in topic.

“What am I gonna do if they take it away, Shiro? It’s all I have left of Annora, I can’t—”

His father’s next words were lost to his tears, and Keith squinted at a shooting star as it cut through the atmosphere. What was all that supposed to mean? Who was taking The Benbow, and why? Were they in debt? 

And, more importantly: why hadn’t Keith been trusted with any of this?

James’ voice leered at him from the depths of his subconsciousness. _Your father must be so proud._

The shooting star grew brighter as it descended, and Keith raised a shaking hand to card through his hair. Anger pulsed through his fingertips, his body vibrating with it as if he’d been struck like a gong. Sure, he might not be the best son, and he might not be the most reliable person; but this was his home too, and he had the right to know… to… 

Keith’s thoughts rolled to a stop, anger fading from his body as the air seemed to leave his lungs all at once. It escaped up into the night sky, an exhale of heart-stopping, stunned _disbelief_ that turned to mist in the chilled air. An eerie silence had fallen over The Wastes—as if, like Keith, every creature and rock was fixated on the burning mass of light in the distance.

The burning mass of light careening down towards The Wastes that was most certainly _not_ a shooting star.

For a moment—it might have been seconds; it might have been an _eternity_ —all was still, and Keith sat frozen as his mind grappled with the incomprehensible picture before him. It was so out of place in the monotonous world of The Wastes that Keith felt an odd detachment to the situation as a whole, as if he were watching the event unfold in a dream. 

The entire situation just… had no _place_ in his life. Not the scream of the escape pod’s failing engines as it hurtled on an unbroken trajectory to solid ground below. Not the flair of red hot flame surrounding the pod like a halo as it cut through Montressor’s atmosphere. Not the stench of burning metal as heat peeled it from the pod’s outer layer. 

Not the undeniable, unshakable, hair-raising whisper of _danger_ spreading through Keith’s veins like ice. 

It was only when the pod slammed into a nearby canyon wall with an almighty _boom_ , rattling the windows of the Benbow like thunder, that the impossible collided irreversibly with reality.


	2. The Pod

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sensibility came crashing back into him, adrenaline wearing off with the rain that pelted his skin, and—when in the hell had it started _raining?_ How had he let himself get so singularly-focused that he hadn’t even noticed? As blind confidence slipped away from him, a barrage of questions took its place, as shocking and sobering as the freezing wind. What the hell had he been _thinking_ , running towards an unidentified craft in the middle of the night? How was he even hoping to help? He had nothing on him—no light, no communications device, no source of warmth or aid in the case of an injured pilot— _nothing._
> 
>  _Stupid, stupid,_ he chastised, finally sparing a long overdue glance back in the direction he’d come from. He wondered what his father would say, if he had witnessed this display of recklessness. Despite the night’s chill, Keith flushed with shame, wondering how many times he could disappoint his father in one day. _You never_ think.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone, welcome back! I'm so excited to be getting this chapter to y'all - NEXT CHAPTER WE GET OUR BOY LANCE 💙
> 
> Big thanks to some lovely people: Sam, [Bre](https://www.instagram.com/ladybb.art/), and my ma for editing, and shout-out to [Eden](https://www.instagram.com/eden.exe_13/) for being an awesome cheerleader this week - thanks buddy!!! EVERYONE GO CHECK OUT BRE'S AND EDEN'S ART!!!!
> 
> As always you can find me at on tumblr [here!](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/barnes-n-romanoff)

The drop from the roof wasn’t coordinated, nor was it graceful. 

Some part of Keith, in the very distant recesses of his mind—the part that urged him to consider his own safety, to turn back, to _run_ —remembered to lower himself before the fall, to drop into a crouch as he landed. The other part of him, the part that howled with burning curiosity and drowned out the timid pleas of rationality, couldn’t care less. He threw caution to the wind, his all-consuming need to get to the crashed pod overriding any whisper of sense or warning of danger.

He landed poorly, ignoring the pain that shot up his ankles as one of them almost rolled underneath him. 

Without sparing a single thought to what he was leaving behind, Keith’s legs carried him forward, and he fell easily into a sprint.

…

Even in the dark, the crashed pod wasn’t hard to find. 

It had come careening violently into a canyon wall near the Benbow’s landing pad (Keith wondered if the pilot had actually been _aiming_ for it—a near-impossible task considering the malfunctioned engines), leaving a smoking trail of destruction in its wake. A newly formed ravine snaked through the desert floor, gauged into soft red clay like a brand. It was the crash site, and the sight of the pod’s dark outline mere feet away, that finally gave Keith pause. 

Sensibility came crashing back into him, adrenaline wearing off with the rain that pelted his skin, and—when in the hell had it started _raining?_ How had he let himself get so singularly-focused that he hadn’t even noticed? As blind confidence slipped away from him, a barrage of questions took its place, as shocking and sobering as the freezing wind. What the hell had he been _thinking_ , running towards an unidentified craft in the middle of the night? How was he even hoping to help? He had nothing on him—no light, no communications device, no source of warmth or aid in the case of an injured pilot— _nothing._

 _Stupid, stupid,_ he chastised, finally sparing a long overdue glance back in the direction he’d come from. He wondered what his father would say, if he had witnessed this display of recklessness. Despite the night’s chill, Keith flushed with shame, wondering how many times he could disappoint his father in one day. _You never_ think.

Briefly, the thought of doubling back for supplies crossed his mind, but he dismissed it almost as soon as it had arrived. It was too late to turn back. The pilot in the pod was bound to be badly injured, if not dead, and Keith (although perhaps not the ideal choice, all things considered) was their only hope. The only thing that mattered was getting them out of that pod and finding help.

With his jaw set in determination and decision, Keith gingerly lowered himself into the ravine, careful of the weight he placed on his throbbing ankles. The last thing he needed was a fracture or a break—he’d be of no use to anyone (let alone this pilot) if he couldn’t support himself on his own two feet. Though he still moved with urgency, he now proceeded with an air of caution, grateful for the frigid rain soaking through his clothes that grounded him and kept his senses sharp. As he approached, the words _unidentified_ _craft_ and _unknown_ cycled through his head, and it occurred to Keith then that there was no way of knowing what manner of being had dropped from the stars—and that in addition to being unprepared and unsupplied, he was also unarmed (save for his tiny pocket knife), and very, _very_ much alone.

 _No one even knows you’re here,_ therecesses of his mind whispered, menacing and unsolicited. _You could disappear right now, and no one would ever know where you’d gone._ A chill shot up his spine, and he shuddered violently, unsure of whether it was the cold or his sudden nerves that was responsible. 

He doubted that his father and Shiro, or any other residents of the Benbow, were aware of the crash. They’d probably dismissed it as a quake, or thunder—some byproduct of the gathering storm. It felt unbelievable to think that he’d been the only witness: but there was no low thrum of a hover transport zipping past, no telltale sirens indicating the arrival of cops, no high-beams illuminating the desert as a land rover trundled by. The night was silent save for the rainfall and the pod’s ominous groaning and creaking. 

_You’re on your own, Kogane._

Eyes glued to the pod, Keith crept forward until he was close enough to make out the main hatch, every muscle in his body coiled and ready to run—or fight—at a moment’s notice. When he’d come within a couple feet of the door, he assessed the situation, bringing a hand to hover over the handle. Though the crash had nearly damaged it beyond recognition, Keith was certain he was looking at the standard one-seat escape unit that most of the galaxy’s ships were equipped with. This one in particular looked old and weathered, it’s metallic hull weathered and worn. Frigid rain pelted the smoking sphere, causing steam to roll off the pod as flames continued to lick weakly at the sky. The whole contraption had rolled to a rest on its side, its hatch tilted at an angle that would make climbing up and extracting a person from within a monumental task. As Keith squinted through the darkness, he swore under his breath, heart sinking as he took note of the bent and dented metal around the door hinge. Gritting his teeth, he rotated the door wheel and gave it a thorough tug, ready for it to open at an awkward angle, and—nothing. He gave another tug, crying out with the force of it, but the door held fast.

Keith growled in frustration, urgency flickering underneath his skin like fire. He needed—no. He _had_ to do this. 

Clinging tightly to the wheel’s warm metal, he braced a foot against the bottom of the pod and yanked at the door with all his might, feeling a vein throb in his forehead as every muscle in his body screamed in protest. He was rewarded for his efforts with nothing more than the tired groan of damaged metal, as if the pod itself was telling him to give up. 

It was with the devastating, sinking feeling of heartbreak that Keith realized that the pod’s locking mechanism must have been damaged beyond repair in the crash, leaving the hatch impossible to open without help. With little other recourse, Keith smacked a palm against the hatch’s window, panic and helplessness rising in his throat in the form of bile. 

“Hey!” he called, pounding insistently against the door and coughing as he inadvertently inhaled a lungful of the exhaust wafting from failed engines. He peered into the window, but the only sight to greet him was the curl of smoke against fiberglass. “You awake in there? I’m gonna help you get out, but I think your lock’s fucked, so if you can move I need you to just—”

A mere inch from his face, something slammed against the window, and Keith went sprawling backward in surprise, falling hard onto his tailbone. As pain shot up his spine, Keith sat in shock, attempting to make sense of the purple palm pressed up against the glass—and attempting to fight off the mind-numbing _fear_ that accompanied the sight. 

He watched the purple hand drag slowly down the windowpane, the squeak of friction loud enough to be heard over the creaking and the rain. In the span of a few seconds, the hand was gone, but Keith _knew_. 

It hadn’t been a trick of the light. It hadn’t been a hallucination borne from the chemical fumes of burning metal; nor a product of some crazed fever-dream. The hand had been _purple,_ andpurple meant Galra, and Galra meant—

Still on the ground, Keith scrambled backward as what sounded like the full weight of a body slammed against the inside of the hatch—once, twice—and then the hatch was being forced open with brute, inhuman strength, the pod’s occupant roaring in guttural agony as the misshapen door fought cooperation. There was a grunt of frustration, and then another mighty _thud_ of body against doorsent the hatch flying open. With it, a figure barrelled out, momentum carrying them heavily to the ground, directly where Keith had been standing only moments before. He watched, frozen simultaneously in terror and indecision, as the being struggled to all fours on limbs that trembled wildly with exhaustion. Smoke and light spilled out of the pod, framing the figure in an eerie haze, and Keith winced as they hacked a rattling cough that sent them collapsing back onto the floor. They curled in on themselves, arms wrapping around their torso as they coughed. 

The sight made Keith’s gut clench with guilt, and the conflict that had arisen within him at the telling sight of _purple_ was swiftly intercepted by the ferocity of his moral code.

Galra or not— _Pirate_ or not… did it really matter? _Did it really matter,_ when a living being was convulsing in unfathomable pain before his eyes? Could he really just play the part of the heartless bystander? 

_You don’t know what they’ve done,_ that treacherous part of him whispered. _You don’t know who they’ve hurt. You don’t know what they’re running from._

But, no, that… that wasn’t _right_. He wasn’t judge or jury; nor was he executioner. He was just… Keith Kogane, a nobody from The Wastes who’d come face-to-face with an injured Pirate. Keith Kogane, who—for the first time in his life—had found himself completely and _utterly_ out of his depth. 

Leaning into his resolve, Keith clambered to his feet, closing the distance between them and throwing himself to his knees beside the Pirate’s head. They continued to hack, drawing in painful wheezing breaths between coughing fits, and Keith wasn’t sure if they were even aware of his presence. 

“Hey.” Keeping the panic out of his voice was a challenge, as was keeping it hushed enough not to alarm his injured companion. If he’d been heard, the Pirate gave no indication. Keith swallowed, his hand hovering above the Pirate’s forearm, clad in an armored, skin-tight black suit with glowing purple accents. “My name is Keith,” he continued, gingerly lowering his hand to the Pirate’s bicep. “You need—”

With lightning-quick reflexes that sent Keith’s heart careening into his throat, the Pirate had Keith’s wrist in a vice-like, bruising grip. They unfurled from their little ball with all the ferocity of a cornered, wounded predator—fangs bared and a low growl rumbling in their throat. Sitting in pools of yellow sclera, thin purple pupils swam with pain and fear, searching Keith’s gaze with an almost disarming intelligence and gravitas. 

Keith swallowed, throat dry and jaw tight. Every instinct begged him to lower his gaze, but he stood his ground, determined that the Pirate should see the sincerity in his eyes. 

“I’m not going to hurt you,” he calmly reassured, every word measured and ringing with truth. “I just wanna help.”

For a terrifying second, nothing happened. The two remained frozen in their stare-down, the Galra’s eyes boring into his as if they could read his innermost thoughts. Then, as if reaching a decision, the Pirate blinked, wincing in pain and curling back in on themself. Instead of releasing Keith’s wrist, their grip slackened—no longer holding onto him as if he were a threat, but clinging to him as if he were a lifeline. 

“Okay,” Keith muttered, trying not to let himself become overwhelmed by the volume of trust that had just been placed in him. He fought back a cough and blinked stinging smoke out of his eyes (he was pretty sure that neither of them should be inhaling it). “Think you can stand?”

The Pirate gave little more than a grunt of affirmation, but it was all Keith needed to pull their arm across his shoulders. Together, the pair struggled to their feet, grunting and straining against one another until they stood upright. Pressed flush against Keith’s right side, the Galra stood painfully hunched over; and Keith assumed they must be easily twice his height. 

“My place is that way,” Keith informed, jerking his chin off to the left. “Ten-minute walk. I can get you help, but you gotta— _hey._ ” Keith raised his voice, adjusting his grip on his alien companion as they sagged heavily against him, nearly slipping from his shoulders. “You gotta stay with me. I can’t—I can’t carry you.”

“I can walk.”

The Pirate’s voice was so weak, so ravaged by smoke, that Keith almost didn’t hear them. Hope fluttered in his chest, and he tightened his grip around them, taking a resolute step forward. 

If they could talk, they could walk. All he had to do was keep them awake. 

“Well yeah, that’s gonna—that’s good,” Keith babbled brainlessly, part of him shocked that they’d actually spoken to him at all, and—what the fuck, _wait._ Because it had only just dawned on him that he shouldn’t have just expected to be understood by a being who’d fallen from the stars. “Where’d you learn Meridian?”

His companion took a rattling breath that sent Keith’s heart plummeting to the floor. _That didn’t sound good._

“Long… time ago.”

That hadn’t exactly answered Keith’s question, but the Galra’s voice— _masculine,_ Keith thought—sounded so ragged and torn that he immediately wished he hadn’t coerced the Pirate into conversation. 

Retracing his path through the ravine, Keith used his free hand to push his sopping bangs out of his eyes, squinting through the rain until he spotted the smoothest way to haul an enormous, injured alien out of the newly formed gully. 

At his side, said companion suddenly grew heavier in his grip, Keith’s knees buckling with the unexpected weight and nearly sending the two of them to the floor. A surprised gasp left him, and he struggled to stay on his feet. “Whoa,” he warned, giving the Pirate a shake for good measure. “You gotta stay awake, uh—”

“Thace,” the Galra mumbled, head hanging low. 

“Oh.” Keith blinked, his brain momentarily attempting to make sense of the nonsensical word before he realized he’d been given a _name_. Heat rose to his cheeks. “Thace. Uh. Nice to meet you.”

The Galra chuckled, and Keith wanted to throw himself off the nearest canyon. The guy had somehow survived the worst crash Keith had ever seen, and here Keith was saying ‘nice to meet you’ like they’d met at teatime at the Benbow. 

Keith stamped down his embarrassment, ignoring his flushed cheeks and the weak laughter beside him. “Uh, I’m—”

“Keith,” Thace interjected, and Keith’s heart nearly stopped altogether before he remembered that he’d already given the Pirate his name; though he hadn’t thought he’d been heard. 

“Right, yeah. Good—good memory,” Keith muttered, once again shifting Thace’s arm over his shoulders. “Think you can stay awake for me, Thace?”

“You… talk,” Thace rasped, hand tightening around Keith’s shoulder. “Helps.”

And… well. Keith may have generally been a man of few words, but if the sound of his voice kept his companion alive, he was more than happy to oblige. 

… 

Thace saw the Benbow before he did. 

The walk had taken them twice as long as Keith had anticipated, their pace labored and painstaking in the dark, wet night. One misplaced step over loose, slippery rubble had sent Thace tumbling to the ground, dragging Keith down heavily with him. On several instances, the duo was forced to come to a halt altogether as Thace was consumed by a fit of breathless wheezing and hacking, rendering him unable to walk. Through it all, Keith kept a sturdy hand on the Pirate’s back, fighting down his own growing helplessness when he could do no more but rub soothing circles and offer meager words of comfort. Despite his efforts, every agonized cough sent guilt clawing deeper into him, finding purchase in his stomach like some frenzied animal.

When Thace wasn’t coughing, Keith was talking. As the two of them stumbled along, he rambled endlessly about anything and everything that popped into his brain: his father, Shiro, the Benbow, the desert, his favorite constellations—anything to keep the man beside him conscious. Every minute or so, Thace would grunt in acknowledgment or assent; but other than that, Keith didn’t dare attempt to rope the Pirate into conversation. Nor did he often peel his gaze from the treacherous terrain beneath their feet, except to reorient himself with his surroundings now and then (a task that proved dangerously difficult in the dark; but Keith had enough experience with illicit nighttime escapades to find his way.)

He was halfway into a story about the time he’d snuck a lizard into James’ work apron when Thace stopped dead in his tracks, bright, keen eyes fixated on something in the distance.

“Uh…” Blinking at the unexpected motion, Keith followed his gaze, squinting into the darkness and releasing a sigh of relief as he was greeted by the Benbow’s twinkling lights a short distance away.

Judging by the tone of his voice, Thace did not seem to share Keith’s relief. “It is large. Your… Benbow,” he rasped, standing stock still and reminding Keith once more of a cornered predator.

“Well, yeah. I told you, it’s—it’s an inn,” Keith panted, brows furrowed in confusion. “Come on, we’re literally there.”

Weakly, Thace raised a shaking hand, unfurling wickedly sharp claws to point ahead of them. “Couple hundred paces.”

“ _Okay_ ,” Keith muttered through gritted teeth, feeling that now might not be the time for a lesson on human idioms. He gave his companion a gentle tug, but despite the alien’s obvious deteriorating health, he remained rooted in place, eyes still locked ahead. “Thace? We’re so _close_ , man, let’s—”

“It is large,” the Pirate repeated, the words a little more heated the second time, as if Keith had failed to grasp some important point. Angling his head to the side, he turned the full intensity of his gaze on Keith, whose heart leaped into his throat, not having expected the burning urgency contorting the Galra’s face. “I cannot allow you to—”

Keith swore as Thace was overcome with the worst coughing fit he’d endured, wreaking havoc on the Pirate’s body and sending both Galra and human to the floor. With an arm draped around Thace’s shoulders, Keith pulled him close, holding him tightly as he cast a furtive, desperate look into the darkness, as if his father or Shiro might just appear. 

It wasn’t fair. They’d come so far, and so close to finally finding help—so unbelievably, _maddeningly_ close—and Thace was going to die here, yards away from the Benbow.

The second the thought crossed his mind, he knew it to be true. Whether Keith liked it or not (he _hated_ it—oh, he hated everything _about_ it), the man now writhing in agony on the floor was going to die. Keith knew it with a strange certainty; the same way he knew that the sun would rise in the morning, or that the downpour would eventually abate, or that the stars would grace the dark sky night after night. It was instinctive— _inevitable_ , even, and it shook Keith to the core.

“Hey.” He shook Thace roughly and blinked to clear his suddenly clouded vision, for which he was unsure whether to blame the rain or his own hot tears. He refused to be ashamed of the way his voice cracked. “Come on, get _up_.” 

Thace rolled onto his back, extending a hand to grasp at Keith’s forearm. His claws dragged at Keith’s jacket, piercing cloth and creating little seams that ran down the material. In a futile attempt to speak, the Pirate choked back a cough. “You don’t…”— _gasp_ —“understand—”

A hacking wheeze exploded from his throat, and Keith—in an impulsive fit of _madness_ borne only of raw desperation—yanked the alien into a sitting position by his chest plate. “Maybe not,” he growled, anger burning red-hot through his veins. “But what I _do_ understand is that I’ve lugged your ass too far for you to give up on me here.” Keith heaved a breath labored with repressed emotion, retreating onto his heels and pushing his sopping fringe off of his forehead. He was relieved to find that Thace’s violent coughing episode seemed to have concluded. “Now, are you gonna help me help you, or do I have to drag you the rest of the way?”

For a long moment, Thace just looked at him, his gaze becoming more and more disconcerting as the seconds passed. Keith had just opened his mouth to continue his tirade when the Galra took a shuddering breath, releasing Keith’s arm in favor of dragging the back of his palm down his face. Keith sat frozen in shock, unsure of what was happening—but he got the sense that whatever it was, it was important. He gripped the Pirate’s shoulder, suddenly petrified by the thought that he may be witnessing someone’s very last moments.

Finally, Thace’s hand retreated, falling limply to the floor. In the dark, Keith couldn’t see the expression on the older man’s face, but when he spoke, it sounded like he was _smiling_. “You… remind me of someone,” he rasped. “A friend.” 

Keith blinked, sending the tears collecting in the corners of his eyes cascading down his face. Shaken, he opened his mouth to respond but found that his voice had lodged itself in his throat. He felt… strangely _raw_ , as if in that one long look, the Pirate had seen all the way down to the depths of his being—past Keith the Criminal and Keith the Failure and Keith the Disappointment, and all the way to… 

_What?_

Stifling a sob, Keith resolutely wiped the tears from his cheeks, raising himself onto a knee and offering an arm for his companion to grab. “ _Please,_ ” he sniffled, the singular word wavering dangerously. He wasn’t sure he even knew _what_ he was pleading for. _Please get up. Please let me at least_ try _to help you. Please don’t give up._

_Please don’t make me watch you die._

Thace seemed to understand him all the same. With a strained grunt, he grabbed Keith’s forearm, and the two of them clambered to their feet.

…

In utter relief to be home, Keith hastily threw the inn’s door open with so much gusto that it slammed against the wall; a deafeningly loud interruption to the Benbow’s sleepy ambiance—so jarring and unexpected that it forced a spirited scream out of Shiro, who’d been the picture of perfect table-washing tranquility until that very second.

Overcoming his initial shock, Shiro’s eyes widened as he took them in. Keith could only imagine the sight he and Thace made: breathless, doubled over, soaked-through and mud-spattered up to their knees. His cousin gaped at them with a dishrag pressed firmly against his chest, momentarily stunned into inaction. “Keith! _What_ —”

“Help me!” he yelled back, staggering under new weight as Thace—now that respite was finally tangible—sagged heavily against him, a sigh of exhaustion morphing into more pained hacking. Shiro took the hint, tossing his cleaning supplies to the floor and darting across the room, ducking carefully under the Pirate’s other arm. As the two of them practically dragged Thace to the closest chair, Keith’s father burst through the kitchen doorway, eyes wild and keys dangling from his hands. 

“Shiro! Keith’s not in our room, I’m gonna—” his eyes landed on the trio at the opposite end of the restaurant. He gasped, taking a reflexive step back. “What in all hells—”

“His pod crash-landed,” Keith hurried to explain, panic leaking into his voice. It had been much easier—necessary, even—to keep himself together when Thace had been solely relying on him to do so. Now, with his father and Shiro in the picture, Keith felt as if a huge burden had been lifted from his shoulders, its weight now borne by the strength of three. “There was so much smoke,” he continued, watching as his father made a beeline towards them. Words left his mouth like water from a running tap, tumbling over one another and uninterrupted by breath. “—and he hasn’t stopped coughing and I didn’t know what to do so I brought him here but I’m scared we took too long—”

Shiro scrambled out of his uncle’s trajectory, making his way to Keith and pulling him into a one-armed hug against his side. Keith clung to him, feeling all at once physically and emotionally drained.

“You did right to bring him here,” his father reassured in a voice that was dead-calm. In one fluid motion, he snatched a chair out from a neighboring table and sat facing Thace knee-to-knee, leaning forward to take the Pirate’s face with gentle hands. Keith could have sworn that—for the very _briefest_ of seconds—his father’s hands paused in their trajectory, hovering midway between them as his eyes darted down to the glowing purple lines adorning Thace’s chest plate.

If Keith had so much as blinked, he might have missed the moment of hesitancy, and he certainly wouldn’t have felt compelled to explain himself. “I’m sorry, I know he’s…” He trailed off, floundering briefly for something to say before swallowing thickly, hoping his next words would sound as assertive as he felt. “Pirate or not, I couldn’t just leave him there.”

“Course you couldn’t. Never woulda expected you to, ace,” his father mumbled, concentration unbroken as he examined the Galran for injuries.

Thace, on the other hand, was once more staring at Keith with the same searching expression from before, purple and yellow eyes locked on his own as if the alien could read Keith’s thoughts if he just looked long enough. 

“You…” Thace’s purple complexion darkened as he struggled to suppress a cough and failed, dots of dark purple blood gathering on his chin. Keith’s father inhaled sharply, swiftly procuring a cloth from his belt to dab gently at Thace’s face as the man struggled to speak. “You thought me to be a Pirate?”

Keith felt as if all the blood in his body had decided to relocate to his face. Mortified, he opened his mouth, hoping something intelligent might come out—an apology, _anything_ —but before he could atone for his ignorant assumption, his father straightened. 

With a sinking heart, Keith realized he was well-familiar with the resigned expression carved into the weary lines of his father’s face. He wrenched himself from his cousin’s grasp, finding himself suddenly overwhelmed by touch. “You can help him, right?” he pleaded, already knowing the answer but hoping against hope that he was wrong. 

Instead of providing a direct answer, Owen Kogane spared his son a mournful glance before turning to place a gentle hand on Thace’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, my friend.”

Keith took a step backward. No. _No._ There was no way this was happening.

While he unraveled at the seams, Thace merely smiled weakly up at Keith’s father as if he’d just announced a pleasant weather forecast. “I feared as much,” he wheezed. “I had… hoped, perhaps, but—”

“No!” Keith yelled, feeling slightly manic. “I got him here as fast as I could; we can’t just give up now, he’s—”

“He’s inhaled too much xynthanium, Keith.” His father’s tone was even, measured—certainly not, Keith thought, the tone of someone who’d trudged through the desert in the hopes of saving a dying man, only to find that there’d been no hope all along. “Got nothing to do with how quick you got him here. You did everything right, but his lungs are shutting down. No amount of hurry was gonna help that.” He turned back to Thace, the lines of his face pulled taut. “I’m guessin’ your fuel tank exploded?”

 _You knew this was coming,_ Keith thought, remembering the smoke that’d accompanied Thace out of the pod’s hatch. _If he was stuck in there, inhaling xynthanium till I found him…_

 _Then there never_ was _any hope,_ he realized, and the thought hit him with unrelenting devastation. He wasn’t sure he’d ever felt anything so painful in all his life. He’d poured his heart and soul into this one act of goodwill, determined that he’d finally do something right—something _good_ —and it was like the universe had spat it all back in his face, cementing his role as no more than a worthless, selfish stain in the world. 

As entrenched as he was in his breakdown, Keith nearly missed his father’s question, as well as the way Thace winced in response. “Shot. Pirates.”

For a second, the room fell silent, save for the ticking of the old clock adorning the back wall. 

Then, Shiro was stepping forward with all the comportment befitting his role as Garrison Head of Outreach, and Keith swallowed nervously. “The Pirates who shot at you,” Shiro asked slowly, his voice ringing with calculating authority, “—are they still after you?”

“Not me,” Thace rasped, digging into a pouch at his waist that Keith hadn’t noticed before. “This.”

In his hand sat an unassuming gold sphere, glowing warmly in the Inn’s dim light. 

“What is it?” Keith breathed, feeling himself drawn in like a fire-weevil to flame. 

When he answered, Thace’s voice was threadbare, every word sounding like a monumental effort to produce. “Something that must never… fall into… their hands.” With definitive assuredness, he met Keith’s eyes. “You… must take it.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Keith was sure that his father and Shiro exchanged a look, but the brunt of his focus was still dedicated to deciphering Thace’s words. “I… _me_?”

Unaware of Keith’s inner turmoil, Thace nodded. “The fate… of the universe… depends—”

“No, I—but why me?” Keith asked sincerely, ignoring the alien’s outstretched palm and the object in it. The whole thing was just… too surreal to be true. His entire _life_ he’d been praying that the universe might take a chance on him—might deliver him an opportunity to prove his mettle. He’d craved adventure, longed to taste it so badly that he’d thrown himself at whatever danger he could find just to feel the thrill of it. And now… not only was he being offered a chance, but the weight of it was enough to send even the most experienced swashbuckler to their knees. 

But Keith wasn’t _that person_. He wasn’t the person people depended on, he wasn’t the person who did things right. He was the person who let everyone down, who—despite how hard he might try—managed to fail over and over.

“I’m nobody,” he whispered, voice cracking as he verbalized the thought.

“Perhaps,” Thace agreed, and… okay, Keith hadn’t been expecting the guy to vehemently disagree or anything, but: _ouch_. “But I sense… the mark of greatness... upon you.” He dissolved into a coughing fit, clutching the golden ball tightly to his chest. Keith surged forward to steady him by the shoulders, his mind still reeling from the unexpected gravitas of Thace’s words. 

When the Galran once again met his gaze, it was hard to ignore the flecks of dark purple blood staining the man’s lips. In his heart, Keith knew that they were nearly out of time, but he needed to ask—needed to _know—_

“You don’t even know me.”

Thace took a shuddering breath and smiled, raising a clawed hand to rest over Keith’s heart. “You… thought I was… Pirate. Saved me. Good… heart.” He sucked in a breath as if there wasn’t enough air in the room. “ _Hero’s_ heart. This...” With his free hand, he grasped Keith’s hand in his own, firmly guiding it to rest atop the golden sphere. “ _Destiny._ ”

Tears rolled freely down Keith’s cheeks as he curled his fingers around the proffered artifact, clutching it tightly against his chest. “I won’t let you down,” he promised hoarsely. As the words left his tongue, they felt like an unbreakable vow. 

No. He certainly would _not_ let Thace down. He’d protect this—this _thing_ with his life if he had to. Not just for the dying alien and the belief that he’d placed in him, or for his father, or even just for the sake of the universe. 

He’d do it for himself. He’d do it to prove to himself that whatever potential Thace saw in him wasn’t unfounded; to prove that there _was_ a place for Keith Kogane to leave his mark in the fabric of the universe.

He pocketed the orb with finality, and was about to step back when Thace (in a surprising show of strength) pulled him forward by the shirt until his mouth hovered near Keith’s ear. “Beware,” he gasped, sounding as if he were using the very remains of his energy to articulate the words, “—the cyborg.”

The hand grasping his shirt went limp and fell away, accompanied by a horrid croaking exhale that ghosted hauntingly over the shell of his ear. Keith straightened, biting back a sob as he regarded the now-deceased man before him. 

He wasn’t sure how long he stared, or how long he tried to make sense of what he was feeling for the passing of a man he’d only known for less than an hour. In reality, he likely only had a few seconds to process the storm of emotions brewing within him, but to Keith, it felt like forever. It was only the cautious creak of footsteps behind him that roused him from his grief, pulling him disorientingly into the next moment before the previous one had even fully concluded. 

“He’s gone.” His father was stepping forward, using two fingers to draw eyelids down over unblinking eyes. “‘M so sorry, darlin’.”

Keith nodded, unsure of what to say. The artifact in his pocket felt heavy, somehow cold against his leg even through the material of his pants. 

“We should get him out of here.” Keith was vaguely aware that Shiro had spoken, but he felt as if someone had stuffed his ears full of cotton. “Whoever was after him will be looking for that pod, so—”

“If we take him back, they’ll notice the thing is gone,” his father cut in, gesturing in Keith’s general direction.

“ _Right_ , but if _he’s_ missing, they’ll track him _here_.”

“Rain’s covered up the footprints by now. If they don’t find that orb, they’ll come here anyway.”

“So—what? You’re saying we just keep him here? Is that really a risk you wanna take?” 

“Shiro—”

“We need to leave.” Both men froze at the interruption, turning to look at Keith, who was hardly aware he’d even spoken the words aloud. He cleared his throat, pressing a palm to his forehead and gripping his fringe in shaking fingers. “You’re both right. They’re gonna come here no matter what we do. We need to be _gone_ before then.”

“Keith.” Shiro pursed his lips. “You’re—we can’t just leave the Benbow to whatever the hell is coming. There are _people_ here—”

“We _have to_ , Shiro. You heard what Thace said.” Keith’s fingers grazed the outline of the orb in his pocket. “The universe _depends_ on this. We don’t have any other choice.”

“The fire bell!” Keith’s father exclaimed, so unexpectedly emphatic that both cousins jumped. “We can evacuate the Benbow _and_ run, we just gotta do it—”

Keith would always remember the irony of that moment, as well as the way all three of them froze in terror as floodlights poured through every window, drowning them in light so bright that Keith had to squint to see his family. He’d always remember the ominous roar of a large vessel as it landed somewhere outside the Benbow, and he’d _always_ remember the fear in his father’s eyes as he barreled across the room towards the fire bell. As soon as he’d flipped the switch, the piercing wail of a siren filled the air. No sooner had the alarm had been triggered than something _big_ had collided with the ground outside, and the night erupted with raucous chatter. It was hard to tell precisely how many voices added to the clamor, but Keith knew for a fact that he and his family were well-outnumbered. 

Seeming to have the same thought, Shiro’s eyes met his. “My skiff is out back. We can slip—” 

“No!” Keith’s father pushed himself away from the switch on the opposite wall, scrambling away from the restaurant’s back door and nearly stumbling into a table. “They’re out back, too. We’re surrounded.”

With each passing second, the noise from both entrances grew louder and closer, interspersed with the terrified screams of fleeing families. the three of them backed away from both entrances, crowding towards the center of the room. 

Keith was just about to ask what in the hell they were supposed to _do_ when a shrill voice rose above the crowd, howling in indignation. “Cap’n! Want us to chase down the civies?” 

_Civies._ His father’s eyes met his own, and Keith could see the same thought pass behind them; the same horrifying, petrifying thought. _They’re going to kill the residents._

“Negative!” bellowed a new voice. The meaning behind the word itself should have sent relief coursing through Keith’s heart. Instead, the very sound of the voice sent chills down his spine, simultaneously freezing him with fear and imbuing him with the urge to run. “Eyes on the prize, you worthless worms! Rip the place apart limb for limb and don’t you rest until that filthy traitor’s been found! The place reeks of his scent.” The voices were all closer now— _too close,_ Keith thought, backing even further away from both doors. The three of them had nearly reached the kitchen, but—what then? The only way to go from there was _up_. 

Once again, that same hair-raising voice rang out over the din, roaring orders with incontestable authority. “You lot, around the side. The rest of you, through here. Now _move_ , maggots!”

The responding cheer was close enough that it spurred the petrified huddle within the restaurant into action. With little other recourse, they turned tail and ran. As Shiro tugged Keith through the kitchen and towards the stairs to the Kogane residence by the wrist (as if Keith _needed_ the prompting), his father trailed close behind, lingering only long enough to drag the curtain dividing the restaurant and kitchen shut. Metal rungs screeched miserably across a rusted rail, and although Keith understood his father’s impulse, he wasn’t entirely sure that a little bit of linen was going to be much protection from this bloodthirsty crew.

They’d just reached the foot of the stairs when both doors to the restaurant burst open with a deafening crash, and the jeers and shouts of the Pirates doubled in volume. 

The trio’s climb slowed to a silent creep. If they were caught before they’d reached the safe barrier of the padlocked door, they’d surely be killed where they stood. Not that they really had much time, because any second now they’d see—

“Captain!” yelled a warbly, distinctly alien-sounding voice. “He’s dead!”

Keith flinched as something heavy smashed against a wall as if a chair had been thrown.

“Do you think me blind, bilge-rat? _Search him_ , you worthless—”

“It’s not on him!” wailed another voice. “Dirty bastard probably hid it!”

The primal, guttural roar that followed rattled Keith to his core, as if someone had injected a shot of pure fear directly into his bloodstream. Newly inspired, his family clambered hastily up the stairs, all caution and calculation thrown to the wind in favor of the fundamental need to _escape_. “Search everything! Leave no table unturned! Turn the place to ashes, for all I care; just _find it_!” commanded the captain. “Lieutenant, Scout—you two are with me. Gotta be something through that doorway,” he concluded; and Keith’s blood ran cold as he realized the captain was talking about the entrance to the _kitchen_.

He had no time to dwell on the prospect of being caught, however, as his father shoved him roughly through the door to their room before turning to draw the deadbolt shut. He fumbled with the locks, fingers trembling so badly that Keith hurriedly pried the older man’s hands away and relieved him of the task. 

When the last lock had clicked into place, Keith whirled around, back pressed against the door. “What the _fuck_ do we do?” he hissed, keeping his voice low despite the chaotic symphony of clattering furniture and boisterous Pirates below. 

“We find a way down to that skiff,” Keith’s father panted, eyes wild and shirt askew.

On the opposite side of the room, Shiro was shoving open a window and climbing halfway out. “Already on it, Uncle O,” he grunted, saddling himself on the windowsill and offering his prosthetic palm to the room’s interior. “Let’s go.”

Father and son rushed to the window, each taking the proffered hand in turn as they climbed out onto the ledge. Clambering out between his father and cousin, Keith was overwhelmed by a strange sense of déjà vu as he recalled standing on this same ledge earlier that very evening, the difference in circumstance jarring enough to give him pause.

_Who would have thought, a few hours ago, that you’d be chased by bloodthirsty Pirates tonight?_

As he glanced down at the sand-skiff hovering over the ground below, he was immediately grateful for Shiro’s dweeb of a husband, who’d grown so fond of stargazing dates that the bottom of the boat was covered in a disarray of blankets.

Behind them, the doorknob jiggled, and Keith’s heart hammered so hard he could feel it in his _fingers_. 

“Okay!” Shiro yelled. Back in the room, something massive slammed against the door, accompanied by the sounds of muffled yelling. “Easy does it, alright? Just carefully lower yourselves and we’ll drop on the count of three.”

The next door smash was accompanied by the sound of splintering wood, and Keith barely let himself think before he was yelling, “THREE!” and shoving his palms against his family’s backs with all his might. All three of them yelled as they fell, and groaned in pain when the air was subsequently knocked out of them. 

To his credit, Shiro recovered first, the very picture of a tried and trained Garrison soldier. He dragged himself onto the skiff’s singular piloting seat, not sparing so much as a glance to his cousin and uncle still recovering on the boat’s blanketed floor. Keith felt a tremor run through his body as the skiff rumbled to life beneath them, and he let himself sink into the sweet softness of the blankets below him. 

_We’re okay,_ he thought, feeling the rush of wind over him as they picked up speed. _We did it. We’re going to be okay._

Overcome by fatigue (and perhaps pain, he honestly couldn’t tell), his eyes were just beginning to slip shut when a muffled sob at his side sent him bolting upright, wincing at a sharp pain in his lower back. 

“Dad! What’s wrong, are you—" 

_Hurt,_ he’d been about to ask. But as Keith followed his father’s eyes to the distant sight of flames illuminating the dark, he realized that ‘hurt’ didn’t even _begin_ to cover it. Heartbroken, perhaps. Mourning. _Bereft._

Unable to stomach the sound of his father’s sobs and feeling utterly helpless to provide comfort, Keith curled in on himself, winding his arms around his knees and trying very hard to keep his gaze forward. He slid a hand into his pocket, grasping the orb for reassurance and praying that sleep might soon find him.

Behind them, their home—the only memento that Owen Kogane had inherited from his late sister—blazed bright red against the night sky as it burned. 

…

Adam and Shiro’s house had always made Keith a little uncomfortable. 

For one, the place was a damn _mansion_. Keith was well-aware that Shiro’s husband had come from money (‘ _richest family in The Wastes’_ he’d once read in a magazine, _‘seventh richest family on Montressor’_ ). At the time, he and Shiro had only just started dating, and Keith couldn’t yet see past _Adam Wright: Garrison Space Academy Professor of Astronomy and History._ It’d taken a couple years to fully warm up to his ex-teacher turned family member, but in that time Adam had proven himself to be a man of real substance; a relentless dweeb with a heart of gold who was head-over-heels for Keith’s cousin.

The primary reason behind Keith’s discomfort was significantly more base-level: Adam’s place was always _freezing_. Even now, huddled under two blankets at the foot of the ornate living room fireplace, it seemed as if the cold had long-since seeped into his skin and was there to stay. 

And… okay. That may have partially been Keith’s fault.

He’d rejected the gentle offer of a warm shower when they’d arrived an hour ago, rain-soaked and freezing and dripping onto the polished tile of the foyer. He’d felt so numb, so _rattled_ by the evening’s events that something as rudimentary as a shower seemed like the last of his priorities. His father and Shiro, on the other hand, had eventually acquiesced. Both men had trudged up the entrance hall’s marble staircase with varying degrees of life in their eyes, leaving Keith to be doted on by Adam.

After he’d sufficiently smothered Keith in blankets and affection, the two of them had sat shoulder to shoulder on the floor in front of the fireplace, and Keith had relayed the night’s events. Adam remained dead-silent as he listened, a pinched expression adorning his bespectacled face as he rubbed soothing circles between Keith’s shoulder-blades.

It didn’t take Adam long to ask to see the artifact.

Although Keith felt strangely protective of the orb and was reluctant to let anyone else touch it, his trust of Adam won out. Weird historical items were kind of Adam’s _thing_ (a side hobby, really—although the guy had an entire _room_ of collectibles in his house that was the size of the Benbow’s restaurant, and… yeah. _Yikes_.) The two of them had spent nearly five full minutes examining Thace’s artifact, tracing the strange lines and markings embedded in its surface. When Adam couldn’t immediately place it’s ornate symbols, he’d deemed it in need of ‘copious research’ (which—in Keith’s humble opinion—sounded terrible.) 

By the time his father and Shiro had returned from their showers, Adam had left his spot on the ground and had moved to stare pensively out a darkened window. Keith remained in his spot in front of the fire, examining the way the sphere glowed in the flickering light and watching from the corner of his eye as Shiro and Adam shared a tender embrace.

“Keith told me everything. Are you—”

“I’m okay, sweetheart.”

“I mean… Pirates at the _Benbow_ ; Shiro, I don’t—”

A movement at Keith’s side drew his focus away to his father, who was lowering himself quietly to sit beside him. He took a raspy breath, and in a voice shredded from crying, asked: “Mind sharin’ a blanket with your old man?”

Nodding eagerly, Keith studied his father as he shifted both blankets to cover the two of them. The man looked as if all the happiness had been sucked out of him; eyes red-rimmed and complexion splotchy. Keith wasn’t sure he’d seen his dad look like _this_ since the day they’d received word from the Garrison that the Shiroganes had been killed in action out in the great abyss of space.

“Dad?” he asked, his voice cracking halfway through the word and garnering his father’s full attention. “I—I’m so sorry.” 

Shifting to drape an arm around his shoulders and pull him in close, his father pressed his forehead to Keith’s mess of hair and rocked him back and forth. “Oh, my darling boy. None of it’s your fault.”

It was as if everything that Keith had repressed since their escape—all the loss and heartbreak he’d been so unable to _feel_ —finally caught up with him, spilling over the dam he’d built to keep it all contained. Distantly, he was aware of Adam and Shiro’s hushed whispers and retreating footsteps, but Keith was lost to grief. He sobbed onto his father’s shoulder until he felt as if he couldn’t physically cry anymore; and when he finally pulled away he was met with a shiny, tear-streaked face offering him a weak smile.

Unbidden, the image of his father’s grief-stricken expression from earlier that night rose to his mind. Shifting to face him, Keith swallowed and reached for his dad’s hand, encasing it in both his own and pulling it towards his heart. He opened his mouth to speak, but—but what was he even supposed to say? They’d lost everything in one night; _everything_ , save—

“We’ve still got each other,” Keith insisted, squeezing the hand in his own and unsure who he was reassuring. “We’re together and—and that’s what’s important, right?” 

He’d meant for the words to soothe, but to his horror, something indescribably pained passed behind his father’s eyes; a sadness that evoked memories of an overheard conversation between father and cousin. He took a long shuddering breath, as if at any moment he might burst into tears again. “Keith, I—there’s something I’ve been meaning to—”

“Guys?”

Nerves frayed from the evening’s events, Keith nearly jumped out of his skin as he whirled towards the source of the voice. At the end of the living room, Shiro stood sheepishly in the doorway, peeking halfway through the threshold. He gave an apologetic wave. “Uh. Sorry to interrupt, but—Adam’s in the study, and he’s—I’m sorry, Keith; he’s asking to see the thing.”

Keith was just opening his mouth to beg for another minute of privacy when his father stood, clearing his throat. 

“That the scientific term?” he asked, shooting Shiro a warm smile (surprising, considering the pain with which he’d previously regarded his own son. Keith couldn’t pretend that didn’t sting.)

Shiro grinned and groaned, pushing himself away from the door frame and backing further into the dimly lit hall. “Just—come on. Sooner he figures out what it is, sooner I can get him to bed.” 

In the time it took Shiro to turn on his heel and disappear down the hall, Keith’s father had swiftly crossed the room, leaving his son to stand alone at the fireplace. 

“Wait, Dad!” 

Without turning, the elder Kogane froze in his trajectory, placing a hand against the elaborately carved door frame. When he didn’t speak, Keith swallowed. “I, uh—you were gonna say something?”

When his father finally did turn to slowly peer over his shoulder, it was to gift Keith with a smile that didn’t meet his eyes; an expression that looked alien on him. 

“Just that I love you, kid,” he rasped, the tendons in his hands visibly bulging as he gripped the doorframe tighter. Keith watched as they receded, and then the hand released its grip altogether, his father stepping over the threshold and into the hall beyond. “Let’s not keep our hosts waitin’, now,” he called, not sparing another glance behind him.

And with that, Owen Kogane left his son to hurry after him, wondering exactly what it was that his father was hiding.

… 

Ever since the discovery that the sphere’s tiny circular engravings retracted inwards when pushed ( _like buttons_ , Keith had breathed in fascination), it seemed that the idea of ‘bed’ was becoming more and more unrealistic by the minute. 

When a rudimentary examination of the artifact had revealed nothing of its purpose, Adam had taken to pacing his study like a lunatic, babbling furiously as he removed tome after tome from his extensive library. Before long, nearly every clear surface had been littered in dusty literature, and Keith’s family had taken to watching with raised eyebrows as Adam flitted from one side of the room to another. 

After two hours of fevered pacing and no results, a restless Keith had shoved a book aside in order to claim a perch at the edge of a desk. Bored and insatiable, he’d opted to poke at the tiny circular digits adorning the orb, attempting to tune out Adam’s frantic muttering and pleas for him to leave the artifact alone.

“… Altean, maybe?” he distantly registered Adam saying. The man paced back and forth in front of his husband, who was making a valiant effort to look like he wasn’t nodding off where he stood. Keith’s father wasn’t doing much better, sitting in Adam’s high-back ‘thinking chair’ and pouring sullenly over a book thicker than his head. “Or maybe it’s—for star’s sake, _quit messing with it_ , Keith—aha!” He darted to a book that’d been haphazardly propped open against a window. “Could have come from Eden-9, they’ve got the— _damn_ , but the lines are all different. Dammit, Shiro!” he exclaimed, not noticing the way his husband startled into wakefulness. “These markings are unlike anything I’ve ever seen; I’ll never figure this out—”

“It’s been two hours, baby,” Shiro sleepily supplied. “These things take time, right?”

The tip of Keith’s tongue stuck out of his mouth as he turned the orb, and—on a whim—he pressed the tiny circles at the top and bottom simultaneously.

Something within the orb _clicked_ , and Keith’s breath hitched in his throat. 

“Of course they do, love, but your family’s Inn burned for this thing—”

Squinting at the orb, Keith noticed that—at a certain angle—one of the smaller digits seemed a _fraction_ more indented than the rest. It would have been indiscernible if he hadn’t been looking so closely, and he was nearly certain that it hadn’t looked like _that_ before the clicking noise. 

He pressed it, and his efforts were rewarded with another click.

“—and if the _Galra_ are after it, it’s bound to be a—a weapon of some sort, or—”

Another indent. Press. Click. Search for the next indent. Press. Click.

“Honey, I love you,” came Shiro’s voice, distant against the hammering of Keith’s heart in his ears. “But you’re not gonna get anywhere without some rest—”

Click, and… where the hell was the next indent? 

“For star’s sake, Shiro, how do you expect me to _rest_ when—”

Had the lines running around the orb’s center _widened_? Keith frowned, attempting to tug and pull it apart at the seams. When the orb didn’t give, he froze and—with bated breath—changed tactics and twisted.

“—and normally something like this could take years to— _HEY_!”

All four of them gasped as, with Keith’s final twist, blue light shot from the sphere, bathing the room in an ethereal glow. Holographic images of planets and star systems danced before their eyes, shimmering iridescently. 

“Keith,” his father breathed, rising incredulously from his chair. Light rippled across his face. “ _How_ —?”

“It’s a map!” Adam sprung forward, the _how_ seemingly disregarded in favor of the _what_. “Look!” Barely able to contain his excitement, he smacked a slender hand against his husband’s chest, who gaped slack-jawed up at the holographic stars. “That’s us; there’s Montressor!” Adam exclaimed, reaching toward the planet at the center of the room. As fingers grazed it, they fell through the image, and the entire holographic galaxy shifted to the left. 

Adam _squealed_. 

“This is— _oh,_ Keith darling, this is—OH! There’s the Eden-Ring, and there’s Andromeda, and Pandora, and—look, Shiro: it’s even got Dayonnara, _look how tiny it is_ —”

“It’s the whole Meridian System,” Keith muttered, bringing up a finger to poke dazedly at Pandora. As he touched it, the word ‘Pandora’ flashed to life above the planet in an elegant, lilting manuscript. “But… why the hell would the Pirates be after a map?”

No one but his father gave any indicator that he’d been heard. Keith only had a couple seconds to try to dissect the strange look on his father’s face before the world before his eyes was moving in a blur as Adam swiped hungrily through the map. 

“This is the singular most remarkable piece of technology I’ve ever seen! Whoever built this must have dedicated years to travel and dis— _huh_.”

Keith tore his eyes away from the cratered surface of Pandora. “What’s ‘huh’?”

“Seems that someone made a mistake.” Adam chuckled good-naturedly, pointing to a miniscule dot right at the edge of the System. Placing both pointer fingers on either side of the speck, he pulled them in opposite directions, humming in delight when the action allowed him to zoom in. “There’s nothing out here beyond Dayonnara, unless you’re counting the dwarf star Excalivver, which clearly isn’t…”

Adam froze, and next to him, Shiro inhaled so swiftly through his nose that Keith could have probably heard it from the next room. Peering cautiously over their shoulders, Owen Kogane’s jaw dropped, and he glanced in Keith’s direction with wide eyes. 

“Darlin’.” His voice was too careful, too controlled. “You’re gonna wanna see this.” 

“What is it?” Keith asked, legs shaking as he crossed the room. He felt like he couldn’t breathe—couldn’t think, or walk, or talk, because in his heart… 

In his heart, he already knew.

His father reached for him with a trembling hand, guiding it to clasp at the nape of his neck. “Looks like you were right,” he whispered, even as Keith read the two words neatly inscribed atop the enlarged dot. “You did find it after all, ace. Just like you always said you would.”

Keith stared, and—undeniably real and tangible—the words _‘Treasure Planet’_ stared right back. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feel free to leave a kudo and/or comment if you enjoyed, and I'll see y'all in two Sundays!


	3. The Boy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On the floor in front of him was a boy around his age, gaping at a shattered crate of supplies at his feet. Shells littered the planks around him, the remnants of whatever kind of eggs he’d been carrying. Gooey, neon-green yolk covered nearly every surface in the vicinity; the floor, Keith’s boots, and—Keith realized with growing horror—the boy’s face and clothes. He was covered in the stuff; and as it dripped into his eyes, the sailors lounging at the helm of the closest ship roared with laughter.
> 
> Mortification crept into Keith’s cheeks as he pieced together what had happened. He’d been so lost in thought that he’d backed into the other boy, who’d been holding a crate brimming with eggs as large as Keith’s palm. He must have thrown the boy off balance, and—
> 
> Keith swallowed, wincing as the goop-covered boy parted sticky hair out of his eyes with deadly deliberation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HELLO AND WELCOME BACK EVERYONE! Tis the chapter you've all been waiting for... the title says it all. 
> 
> Couple things: 
> 
> I promised someone in the comments last chapter that I'd provide ages for all the characters. Ages are scattered throughout the fic, but here they all are in one place: Keith (19), Shiro (29), Adam (32), Lance (18), Allura (31), Coran (57), Keith’s father (53)
> 
> Also, please note the character list! There will be characters making an appearance that haven't been listed yet, but since someone asked me, I wanted to say: no, unfortunately Pidge and Hunk will not be in this fic. I know we all love them, but this fic is filled to the brim with characters and plot points, and I want to make sure I focus on getting all the big emotional beats in (rather than over-filling the story with characters and over-complicating everything). For anyone interested, I definitely plan on writing another fic, and I'd love to include our wonderful Pidge and Hunk in that!
> 
> THANK YOU TIME!!! Big thanks to beta readers Kyra and Farah (you two are so freaking awesome 💙) and enormous thanks to this chapter's editors [Speaks](https://speakswords.tumblr.com/) and—of course—my ma. I so appreciate you all taking the time, and please know that I could not do this without you. Special thanks to Speaks for melting my brain with nerdy space stuff. You're the absolute best, buddy.
> 
> SHOUTOUT TO MY FRIEND [EDEN](https://www.instagram.com/eden.exe_13/)! ENJOY YOUR CAMEO!!!! 💙💙💙
> 
> As always, find me on tumblr [here](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/barnes-n-romanoff)!!!

For a few seconds, no one spoke. No one moved. The room was eerily silent, save for the crackle of fire in the hearth and the patter of rain against the windows and the rhythmic clicking of the clock on the mantle. They served as the only indicators that time had not, in fact, stood still altogether—but for the four men struck speechless at the tangible proof of the authenticity of an urban legend, it may very well have.

Shiro was the first to be roused from shock, stirring beside Keith with a deep inhale. “They can’t find this.”

He said it matter-of-factly, and (though they once might have) none of them questioned his sanity or the validity of his statement. Nor did they question the existence of a fable, the evening’s harrowing events too fresh and real to leave any room for doubt.

 _This_ was what the Benbow had burned for. _This_ was what Thace had died for. 

Treasure Planet.

As Keith protectively cradled the glowing sphere in his palms, Adam finally broke himself from his reverie. He ran a hand through his unkempt head of hair, causing it to stick up in every direction. 

Under different circumstances, Keith might have found it funny. 

Across from him, Adam leaned heavily into Shiro’s side, nodding in agreement with his husband. “No, indeed.” His voice was ragged and strained with emotion. “This is— _no one can know_.”

“It can’t stay here,” Shiro decided, shifting to wrap his arms around his husband. “If they come looking for it… ”

“So we give it to the Garrison, they can—”

“ _No_.” The conviction in his father’s voice had Keith whirling around to find its source, and from the corner of his eye, he noticed Adam and Shiro following suit. At some point, his dad had moved to collapse into a desk chair and now sat with his elbows on his knees, head in his hands. “Under no circumstances can that happen,” he asserted, never once looking up. 

Confused, Keith caught his cousin’s eye, and the two of them exchanged a look before Shiro took a tentative step forward. “Uh, Uncle O—”

“It’s out of the question, Shiro,” Keith’s father snapped; and when he finally looked up, the tired circles around his eyes seemed deeper and darker than ever. He winced apologetically when Shiro recoiled at his tone. “Look, kid, it’s—I know you trust the Garrison, but this ain’t just a collection of sparkly rocks we’re talking about here. Raw quintessence, Shiro. You’ve seen what that stuff can do in the wrong hands. You really want the _Garrison_ to get their hands on all that? Not to mention—”

“The weapon,” Keith breathed. All eyes in the room turned to him, and he swallowed. “The stories all say Zarkon was building something before he disappeared, right?” 

His father nodded, and to Keith’s left, Adam spluttered. “Well, _yes_ , but—I mean, Owen, you don’t _really_ think—”

“I do.” Owen Kogane rose to his full height, casting long shadows around the room. “We already know the Galra are after this, which means this is the real deal. We could spend all night parsing through the myths and trying to distinguish fact from fiction but in truth, we can’t know.” He took a deep breath, lost in thought as he reached out to caress the holographic outline of Eden-4. His finger took on a blue hue as it passed through the image. “We can’t rule anything out.”

After a short, tense silence, Shiro shuffled uncomfortably. “He’s got a point. That much raw quintessence—” 

Adam waved a hand, adjusting the position of his glasses atop his nose. “Very well; but if not the Garrison, then—”

“We have to hide it.” It came to Keith like a whisper at the back of his mind, a tickle of an idea that had barely formed before he was blurting it into existence. “Somewhere Zarkon’s _cronies_ will never find it.” As if he’d done it a hundred times, Keith twisted both ends of the sphere, and it clicked back into its original form, the holographic map around them disappearing. When he looked back up, the room was no longer awash in blue, and his family was staring at him with wide eyes. 

To his surprise, his father was watching him as if he were waiting for him to place the last piece of an intricate puzzle. Keith clutched the orb— _map,_ he told himself, _you’re holding a fucking_ map—to his chest, cold clarity hitting him as he realized exactly what the last puzzle piece _was_. 

“We have to take it there.” The words left him with assertion and certainty that he’d never possessed in his life, and he met the eyes of his family in turn. “To Treasure Planet.”

Silence. The clock ticked. The rain tapped. The fire popped.

“Keith.” Shiro’s voice, low and steady, as if he were reasoning with a child. “That’s—”

“Insane?” Keith cut in, meeting his cousin’s eyes with fervor. “I know. But there’s no other option.” Turning to his father, his voice grew somewhat hesitant as he sought validation. “If the map is lost, the trove is lost. _And_ we can ensure that no one can ever get their hands on that weapon. Power it down, or—or hide it or something. Right?”

Where Adam and Shiro looked aghast—eyes wide and jaws slack—Owen Kogane looked as if he’d come to terms with something particularly momentous. When he nodded, his face became unreadable and stoney, his mouth pulling into a thin line.

Keith swallowed, forcing himself to tear his eyes away even as Shiro cleared his throat. “Wouldn’t it be easier to just… destroy it?” he asked, gesturing to the map in Keith’s hands with a wrinkled nose.

To their surprise, it was Adam who squawked in indignation, leveling a glare at his husband and smacking at his arm. Shiro grumbled as he rubbed at the spot; and for the first time that evening, Keith allowed a smile to creep onto his face. 

“ _Takashi_ ,” Adam chastised, using Shiro’s full name for good measure. “Of all the foolhardy—we can’t _destroy it_ , we have no idea what sort of fail-safes we might set off! This is _Zarkon’s. Map_. The thing could be rigged with a _bomb_ for all we know.”

“Well, can’t you study—”

“Love, I _adore_ your faith in me; I really do. But like I said before, I’ve never seen anything _like_ this.” He held an expectant hand out toward Keith, who wasted no time in tossing it over. He suppressed a snort as Adam scrambled clumsily to catch it, clearly not having expected a priceless artifact to be _thrown_. After shooting Keith a dirty look, he held the map up to the firelight, turning it slowly as he scanned its markings. 

“As much as it kills me to say, uncovering its secrets will take time that we simply do not have if we’re to keep it moving.” He laughed breathlessly. “In fact, I’m not even sure how Keith managed to open it in the first place,” he muttered, brows drawn in concentration as he prodded (to no avail) at the map’s digits. Without pausing in his efforts, he angled himself towards Keith. “Darling, how—”

“That secret best remain with Keith,” Owen interjected, striding forward to gently pry the map out of Adam’s hands. He turned, pressing it carefully into Keith’s awaiting palms and covering them tightly with his own. Bending slightly, he pressed a soft kiss to Keith’s forehead before leveling him with a look so grave that Keith shuddered. “Fewer people know how to use this thing, the better. You keep it on you at all times, you hear? An’ don’t you mention a peep of this to _anyone_.” 

Reflexively, Keith nodded—and then the meaning behind the words caught up with him, and he took a shaky step forward as his father pulled away. 

“Wait, Dad. Why’re you talking like… like…”

“Like you’re not coming?” Shiro finished, verbalizing what Keith could not. “We’re gonna need you, Uncle O. There’s no way we can do this by ourselves.”

Adam made a noise like a dying engine. “Now _hold on just a minute_ , I’d assumed we would entrust the map to—to a Garrison official, or—”

“Shiro _is_ a Garrison official,” Keith’s father argued in a voice that strained for patience. “As Head of Outreach and one of the Garrison’s finest diplomats, he is more than qualified—”

“And we all know what’s happened whenever a Head of Outreach has traveled to the edge of the galaxy,” Adam snapped, losing his temper in a very uncharacteristic display of aggression. “Or have we forgotten?”

The room’s three other occupants reeled back—Shiro in particular looking as if he’d been struck. Keith’s father folded his arms across his chest, and Adam shrunk back under his glare

“ _That_ ,” Owen said cooly, “—was out of line.”

Adam desperately sought the attention of his husband, who looked like he was trying very hard to win a staring contest against the rug. “Sweetheart, _please_ look at me; I didn’t mean—it’s…” Shiro’s lips thinned into a line, and Adam threw his hands up in frustration, addressing the room at large. “Look, I’m sorry, alright? That was callous and—and insensitive, but I won’t apologize for worrying for my husband’s safety, not after—” The sentence screeched to a halt as his eyes darted to Shiro’s cybernetic arm, but none of them needed words to understand the pain written across his face.

The room settled into an uneasy silence. Before it could become unbearable, Shiro cleared his throat, attempting to subtly shift his cybernetic enhancement out of view. “I think,” he started, and Keith winced at the hint of tears in his voice, “—that Adam and I need a moment alone.” 

Both Keith and his father nodded, feeling very suddenly out of place as they watched Shiro wordlessly lead his husband from the room. They were gone within seconds, leaving nothing but the constant drone of the clock on the mantle in their wake.

For a few agonizingly silent seconds, father and son evaluated one another, worlds of unspoken thoughts sitting in the short distance between them. Keith’s mind buzzed with so many questions that he hardly knew where to start; but as he tucked the map safely back into his pocket, one question slipped from his mouth without thought. 

“You’ve known it was real all this time, haven’t you?”

A pause. Shadows danced along his father's face. “Yes.”

That was… good, at least. Even when the man was clearly keeping secrets, Keith could always rely on his honesty. As much as the answer hurt, at least he’d been trusted with the truth. “So…” Keith trailed off, shoving his shaking hands into his pockets. “You gonna tell me how?” 

His father swallowed. “I can’t.” 

Keith nodded, chewing at the inside of his cheeks as betrayal stung unrelentingly at his heart. “Did you know Thace?”

Another pause, just a hair too long to guarantee that what followed would be the _full_ truth. “No.”

“But you recognized him, or—or _something_.”

His father’s voice was a hoarse whisper. “He was one of the Blades of Marmora.”

Keith inhaled sharply, feeling his fists clench inside his pockets. _So they’re real too._ He supposed he shouldn’t be surprised anymore, all things considered. If Treasure Planet was real, then so was the elite, top-secret society of rebel Galran spies tasked with infiltrating the Galran Pirates from the inside.

Sure. Why the fuck _not_.

It still didn’t explain how _his dad_ , a humble innkeeper from _the Wastes_ , had come by this information. “And how would you know _that_?”

A tear ran down his father’s cheek, and he raised a hand to wipe it away. “I’m _sorry_ , Keith. You got no idea how bad I wanna tell you, it just… ain’t my secret to tell.”

The agony in his father’s voice was enough to dislodge Keith from his line of questioning. With wide eyes, he watched as the man brought both hands to his face, muffling a sob. “I never wanted to hurt you, darling, I—I’d tell you _everything_ if I could, _I swear_ —”

Unable to bear the way his father’s voice cracked, Keith practically flew across the short distance between them to wrap his arms around the most important person in his life. As they held one another in a crushing embrace, Keith imagined having to keep a precious secret from the people he loved. He imagined the guilt that would tear away at him, and his anger dissipated with each of his father’s sobs.

“Hey.” He pulled away, drying his own wet face. “I’m sorry, Pops. I’m not mad, okay?” His father regarded him with puffy, red eyes, and Keith felt shame well up within himself. _Gee, you big jerk; how many times can you make your old man cry in one evening?_

He clutched at his dad’s sleeves, trying desperately to apologize with his eyes. “I get it. There’s stuff you can’t tell me, and that—that must _suck_. But maybe when I’m—” he took a shuddering breath, because he _must_ have heard this part of the conversation incorrectly, “—when I’m up there, I’ll find the answers for myself.”

Regarding him with a wry smile, his father reached out to place a hand on his cheek, combing aside his unruly hair. “Oh, I think we can be certain of that, ace.”

It might have been the tender, physical display of affection, or it might have been the old, well-worn nickname; but something inside Keith broke. 

“You’re really not coming?”

Owen Kogane laughed, the sound less humorous and more bittersweet. “I’m old, kid. I’d only get in your way. I’m not a fighter like Shiro, and I’m not—” He laughed again, but this time it was so unbearably fond that Keith almost wanted to look away. “I’m not _anything_ like you, darling.”

“Right.” At that, Keith _did_ look away, angling his chin toward the fireplace as his words leaked with bitterness. “I’m like _Mom_.”

Another hand settled on his face, which was then gently guided back to meet his father’s eyes. “No, baby boy. You _remind_ _me_ of her, sure—but no. You’re like _you_ , darlin’. Headstrong and clever and so darn resourceful in ways that I never have been. When this heart of yours knows what it wants…” he released Keith’s face to tap a finger over his chest. “You’re unstoppable, kid. That fella Thace saw it too, y’know. Your light.”

Overwhelmed, Keith let his head fall forward against his father’s chest, tears leaking from his eyes with abandon. It felt as if every word were scrubbing some dark smudge from his soul, lathering and cleaning until Keith had been scrubbed raw. He wasn’t sure how he managed to speak through the dam of emotions building in his throat, but after a few seconds, he somehow managed, “How are you so okay with all this?”

“ _Okay_? Keith, I’m _terrified_. You think I want to lose you?” His hands settled on Keith’s head and upper back, holding him like he was something precious. “I _wish_ I could come, sweetheart. But I meant what I said before. Like it or not, fate chose _you_ for this task.”

He pulled away, settling his hands atop Keith’s shoulders. “Besides,” he added, and something in his voice implored Keith to meet his eyes. “I’ve been preparing for this day for a long, _long_ time.”

When Keith stared aghast at him, unable to coerce his mouth into forming actual words, his dad laughed. “What? You think I don’t see the way you look at the stars? You’ve been waiting for something like this since you were pint-sized, kid. You don’t belong down in this—this mundane world. You belong up there, with the stars. Always have. An’ who the hell am I to keep you tethered to the ground?”

Keith’s head was throbbing—whether from crying or from sheer disbelief, he wasn’t sure. It was everything he’d ever wanted—no, _needed_ —to hear his father say, but admitting that to himself felt wrong, selfish beyond anything that he could describe. “I don’t wanna _leave you_ , Dad. It’s—it’s us against the world, right? We stick together,” he insisted, even as his father shook his head, a bittersweet smile gently curving his lips. 

“Keith.” His hands moved to either side of Keith’s face. “Look me in the eye and tell me that this life is what you want.” Keith’s breath caught in his throat, and his father’s smile turned knowing. “Tell me honestly that you’re happy.”

He opened his mouth, furiously willing denial to his lips. It never came.

“You were _meant_ for this, ace. Not for toilin’ away in the Wastes.” His father chuckled, knocking a fist gently atop his son’s head. “Destiny’s come a’callin. You gonna answer?”

“Yes,” Keith breathed, chest tight with emotion. He felt like a great weight had been lifted from his shoulders, one that had gotten heavier with each passing year; growing with each screw-up and failure. Now, he finally had a chance to shed that weight—to make it all right. “I’ll do it. Shiro and I will make sure no one else ever finds the map, and I—I’ll make you proud, Dad. I promise.” He clutched the sphere in his pocket so hard that his fingers throbbed. 

He wasn’t expecting his father’s face to crumple into an expression of pure love. “That’s just the thing, kid. You _already_ make me proud. You gotta stop trying to be the man you think I want you to be, and become someone _you_ can be proud of. You hear?”

Keith didn’t bother trying to hide his tears as he nodded his assent, shifting forward to once again seek the comfort of his father’s embrace. It occurred to him that when he was in space, surrounded by the stars and adventure and everything he’d ever wanted, there’d still be something missing. He’d never be fully whole, not when his heart ached for what it had left behind.

“I’m really gonna miss you, Pop,” he somehow managed to choke, hands tightening around fistfuls of his father’s jacket.

Owen Kogane cradled his son close, raking trembling fingers through an unkempt head of hair. 

“ _Hell_ , kid. I’m gonna miss you too.” 

… 

The Spaceport of the moon Crescentia was crowded, almost unbearably so. 

They’d taken Shiro’s well-worn skiff off-planet, traveling the short distance between the surface of Montressor and its moon in what felt to Keith like mere minutes. In reality, the journey had likely lasted a little over an hour, but Keith was far too awed by his first venture off his home planet to pay much heed to the passage of time. As Shiro piloted, Keith crawled frantically around the front of the skiff, unable to quell his desire to take in the view from every possible angle. It seemed as if the sight in front of his very eyes was too unreal to process, and he found himself constantly blinking himself back into awareness. 

It was breathtaking. Overwhelming. Too impossibly beautiful to be true, and yet; here it was.

Space surrounded him, stretching out as far as the eye could see. For a while, Keith was simply struck by how clear the air was; how wonderfully crisp and clean. It was one thing; breathing etherium with his feet planted firmly on the ground in the Wastes. It was quite another to breathe etherium in open-space, knowing that it stretched out all around him for hundreds of light years; connecting him to planets and stars, and to every living organism in the galaxy…

It was enough to bring any living being to tears.

In front of them, the crescent moon shone ethereally, growing more and more distinguishable as a spaceport as they approached. The flat curve of its surface became an intricate network of buildings and streets; and even from here, Keith could see grand ships returning to port, as well as setting sail in the distance as they headed out to farther reaches of space than Shiro’s little skiff could weather.

The view behind them was perhaps more beautiful, yet Keith could not bear to look at it for more than a few minutes. He’d never before seen the planet Montressor from anywhere that wasn’t _on_ it. Not even endless, boring courses at the Garrison—during which they’d been shown picture upon picture and hologram upon hologram depicting their planet from space—could have prepared him. Seeing it like this; its greens and blues and browns merging into one hue as the planet grew farther and smaller by the minute… 

It was peaceful. Heartbreaking. It stole the breath right out of his lungs; rendered his tongue useless and his mouth speechless. From up here, it was hard to imagine what had plagued him so on the ground below. For a moment—for one, poignant moment—Keith mused that it all seemed so insignificant. 

The longer he stared—eyes glassy and lower lip held firmly between his teeth—the more he was tempted to run back to the piece of his heart he’d left behind.

Before long, he’d sent his father a silent promise of return and wrenched his eyes from the view, unable to bear watching it any longer.

By the time they’d docked and disembarked at Crescentia, Montressor was well on its way out of his thoughts; pushed to the back of Keith’s mind as the Spaceport practically exploded to life around him.

Keith struggled to comprehend the utter insanity around him. 

Street vendors hawked their goods at the passerby, gesturing robustly to lavish displays of food and jewelry and every knick-knack imaginable. Merchants muttered gruffly as they pushed through the crowd, loading their ships with crates full of supplies. Travelers and tourists of all ages and races (human and alien alike) hollered at one another over the bustling throng, reuniting or parting with equal fervor. 

Keith had never been one for noise, or for crowds. He should have hated it; should have felt completely overwhelmed.

He couldn’t have possibly been more enchanted. 

It was honestly a wonder that Shiro didn’t lose him. As his cousin forged through the masses, Keith stumbled along behind, barely able to keep up as he spun in circles, attention pulled in every direction all at once. He felt as if his heels were tied to a giant wheel, one that kept him turning out of wonder. 

He’d never been surrounded by such… variety. He stared, open-jawed, as he passed stalls heaped with expensive looking gadgets that Keith and his father could never _hope_ to be able to afford. He tried not to openly drool as he passed delicious-looking, off-planet delicacies that he’d only ever seen in the pictures of his _Alien Cultures and You: The Finer Things_ textbook at the Garrison. He very much tried not to rudely ogle the weird and wonderful alien passerby; several of whom caught him gawking anyway, shuffling briskly away from him on scales or tentacles or gelatinous bodies with curt _harrumphs_.

On more than one occasion, he grew so restlessly eager to take it all in that he nearly lost sight of Shiro altogether; and his cousin was forced to retrace his steps to pull Keith from whatever extravagant display had caught his eye. (One such time, Keith had been side-tracked by an entire display case of glistening knives, and Shiro had been forced to literally drag him away; hauling him into the air with an arm around his torso as if he were a child. After that, Shiro had threatened to buy Keith a child-leash, and Keith had glowered at him for all of a minute before getting side-tracked once again.)

When the ships came into view, Shiro nearly made good on the threat. 

Keith practically ran, squeezing and shoving his way through families until he was standing on the docks of the port. At the edge of the dock, mere _inches_ from his boots, splintered wood fell away into the Etherium. With wind rippling through his jacket, Keith stepped toward the very edge, peering into the vast abyss of space before him. 

It almost felt as if he were flying. 

He might have closed his eyes to enjoy the breeze if not for the sight before him, stealing both his attention and breath all at once. Hundreds of massive ships stretched as far as the eye could see, their towering wooden masts reaching proudly for the sky. They hovered in mid-air at their berths, creaking and groaning as they bobbed gently on the currents of the Etherium. As Keith watched, entranced and captivated, the wind curled playfully through his hair as if summoning him onward. 

_Come, Keith,_ it seemed to say, teasing the hair around the nape of his neck and beckoning him out to open sky. _Come home._

Keith didn’t realize he was crying until Shiro’s voice startled him away from the edge; and he took a couple of heavy steps backward and out of the wind’s embrace.

“Keith Akira Kogane, I swear I’m gonna buy that child-restraint right now, or a pair of fucking handcuffs if I have to; and you won’t leave my side until—”

He broke off as Keith turned wordlessly to look at him. Something on his face (Keith suspected it might have been the tears) softened his cousin’s expression into something tender, and he stepped forward to join him without another word of admonishment. 

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” he breathed, pulling Keith against his side and pressing a kiss to the top of his head. 

“Yeah,” Keith croaked, unable to say much of anything else. 

Next to him, his cousin hummed. “Wonder which one’s ours, huh?”

“You mean, the Captain’s,” Keith sniffled, a teasing grin splitting across his face as he elbowed his cousin in the ribs.

Shiro huffed a laugh. “But of course. Captain Allura of Altea,” he recited. “Hell of a ring to it. You know, Adam said she supposedly saved an entire fleet of Dayonnaraans from a Pirate attack. Single-handed.” He gave his human hand a dramatic flourish, falling back into silence when Keith remained unresponsive.

After a couple seconds—during which Keith had nearly forgotten his cousin was even _there_ —Shiro cleared his throat. “Alright, bud. I think I’ve been going about this the wrong way.”

Ripping his gaze from the ships, Keith frowned up at his cousin. “Huh?”

Shiro grinned (as if Keith had just inadvertently proved some point) and reached out to ruffle his hair. He laughed as Keith protested, yanking himself out of his cousin’s hold. “Here’s the deal. You stay here and explore,” he offered, gesturing to the docks, “—and I’ll shop.”

Somewhere under all the child-like wonder, Keith was hit by a twinge of guilt. “Are you sure? I can help—”

Already retreating, his cousin waved a dismissive hand. “It’s your first time here, kid,” he reasoned. “Have a look around, just—stay in this area, okay?” When Keith eagerly nodded, Shiro shot him a thumbs up. “If you need me, I’m gonna be over that way,” he called, jerking a thumb over his shoulder. “I think I passed a little shop with for-sale signs on open-space suits… Eden’s Emporium, or something?”

Keith blinked, suddenly having second thoughts about letting his cousin wander off alone. “You’re… buying suits from a place called—”

“I know what I’m doing!” Shiro called haughtily; and with that, he turned tail and slipped back into the crowd, lost in a sea of people. 

… 

Although the docks were _slightly_ less busy than the port, they were equally chaotic.

Even as Keith meandered aimlessly along the creaking boards, his eyes glued to elaborately painted prows and flapping sails, he was forced to weave and duck to avoid collisions with sailors and passengers alike. The ships only seemed to grow more intricate and spectacular as he walked, all the while keeping an eye out for the _Queen Melenor_. 

As happy as he was, the experience was somewhat soured by the absence of his father. Although Keith had desperately wanted him to accompany them to the port, his father had opted to stay behind with Adam, confessing the desire to keep their expedition as small and as inconspicuous as possible. (Secretly, Keith suspected that his father stayed behind to ensure that Adam didn’t make a last-ditch attempt to dissuade Shiro.) 

Neither Keith nor his dad had ever been to the Spaceport; not even when Keith had attended the Garrison, and they’d shuttled students to the port on field trips (he’d never been selected to go—not exactly surprising, considering his track record at the school). His father had always known that Keith wanted to visit, and he’d often promised to take them if they ever had the time or money.

Now, being here without him felt… wrong. 

Mood dampened, he had just decided to double back to find Shiro when it happened. 

He’d been so caught up in reminiscing about thoughts of home and warmth and familiarity that it almost transpired too quickly for him to process. One second, he was lost in thought, spinning on his heel to admire the woodwork on a prow that might have caught his father’s eye; and the next, he was colliding into something back-first, grabbing the coat of a passerby for balance as whatever was behind him gave way. 

At his back, a cry of surprise quickly turned into a blustering exclamation of rage; and preparing himself for the worst, Keith whirled around—

And considered throwing himself off the dock.

On the floor in front of him was a boy around his age, gaping at a shattered crate of supplies at his feet. Shells littered the planks around him, the remnants of whatever kind of eggs he’d been carrying. Gooey, neon-green yolk covered nearly every surface in the vicinity; the floor, Keith’s boots, and—Keith realized with growing horror—the boy’s face and clothes. He was covered in the stuff; and as it dripped into his eyes, the sailors lounging at the helm of the closest ship roared with laughter.

Mortification crept into Keith’s cheeks as he pieced together what had happened. He’d been so lost in thought that he’d backed into the other boy, who’d been holding a crate brimming with eggs as large as Keith’s palm. He must have thrown the boy off balance, and—

Keith swallowed, wincing as the goop-covered boy parted sticky hair out of his eyes with deadly deliberation. 

_Oh, fuck_. He took a step forward, crouching down to meet the boy's eyes. “I’m—”

 _Sorry_ , he meant to say. Really, he did. 

But then the boy was leveling him with a glare to rival all glares, and Keith’s words died in his throat. 

He’d never seen eyes so… so _entrancing_ , before. They were different colors ( _heterochromia,_ Keith thought, _that’s so fucking pretty_ ), one a pale, icy blue; the other a vibrant green that faded into hazel towards the center. 

“You wanna take a picture, asshole?”

Keith blinked, reeling backward. He hadn’t realized how close he’d gotten to the boy’s face as he openly stared. “I—what?”

The boy rolled his eyes and laughed—a sarky, mocking sound that had Keith instantly bristling. “Clumsy _and_ slow. That’s quite an attractive combo, haircut.”

_… Haircut?_

Standing, Keith wiped flecks of gelatinous goop from his palms against his pants, trying to ignore his burning face. Compassion left him as easily as it had come, replaced instead by haughty indifference. “Says the guy sitting in goo,” he cooly replied, folding his arms across his chest in what he hoped was a very clear message: _I don’t help douchebags._

The boy on the ground spluttered in indignation, which might have reminded Keith of Adam if not for the venom behind the boy’s expression. “Are you fucking—”

Their captive audience of sailors exploded into guffaws as the boy attempted to stand, only to cry out and topple back to the floor as he slipped in slime. His complexion, already several shades darker than Keith’s, took on a red tint as a blush rose from his neck all the way up to his hairline. 

By the time he’d managed to struggle to his feet, the boy’s expression had practically gone thermonuclear. “Lemme give it to you nice and slow,” he hissed, poking a finger into Keith’s chest. “ _You_ bumped into _me_ , Mr. ‘I’m-Too-Cool-To-Watch-Where-I’m-Going’,” he explained, his tone turning condescending. “Just to be clear: _you’re_ the asshole here.”

Keith shrugged, batting the boy’s finger from his chest with feigned nonchalance and schooling his features into the most bored expression he could muster. “Takes one to know one, I guess.” 

It was juvenile, and a terrible comeback; but something about the boy rubbed him the wrong way. He hadn’t been this affected by anyone since—

_Your father must be so proud._

_Oh._ So _that’s_ who this jerk reminded him of. Leave it to Keith to find the one person on Crescentia who reminded him of everything he was trying to leave behind. 

The boy (Griffin 2.0, Keith lovingly decided to call him), stared—livid—at the empty spot that his hand had occupied before it had been smacked away. Keith could have sworn that one of Griffin 2.0’s eyes even twitched. “Who the _fuck_ ,” he growled, clearly goaded by Keith’s indifference, “—do you think you _are_?”

Whatever witty retort Keith might have summoned proved unnecessary. As if Irony itself had intervened, an unfamiliar gruff voice located somewhere in the bustling throng behind Keith hollered, “Oi! Get a bloody move on, Cabin Boy!” punctuated by a round of distant, raucous laughter.

In the very far reaches of his brain (the part that he suspected housed what little rationality he possessed), Keith registered the way the boy’s face fell, the fire in his eyes dimming as all traces of fight left his body in a split second.

It might have been enough to give any rational person pause—to perhaps rein in their attack and quit while they were ahead. 

Of course, rationality had never really been Keith’s strong suit. 

Feeling his mouth twist into a triumphant smirk, Keith stepped forward, encroaching on the boy’s space. “I might not be anyone important,” he purred, clapping Griffin 2.0 on the shoulder as he maneuvered around him and lingering near his ear long enough to hiss: “—but I’m sure as _shit_ not some cabin boy.”

Griffin 2.0’s head turned to meet his gaze, eyes wide with shock—and to Keith’s delight, a spark of defiance had returned to their depths (he hadn’t even realized that he’d wanted it back). His mouth sprung open with the promise of retaliation, and with a hammering heart Keith braced himself for—

“BLUE!” came another impatient bark.

The boy’s mouth snapped shut, and Keith chuckled as he gave the boy’s shoulder a final pat. “Sounds like you gotta get moving,” he remarked, tucking his hands into his pockets and stepping away. Before he moved too far out of hearing, he raised a hand over his shoulder, not bothering to spare the boy another glance as he called, “See you never, _cabin boy_ ,” before departing the scene.

… 

By the time Keith found Eden’s Emporium, he was in a foul mood. The entire interaction with the boy had left a shit-stain on his day that only seemed to grow with every step, and he merited a large number of glares as he shoved his way through the crowd. (Not that he cared. He was hot, sweaty, and the bright green yolk staining his favorite boots reeked in a way that made his stomach turn.) Keith was itching for the impending launch, eager to leave it all behind him.

Of course, he should have expected that it wouldn’t be that easy. 

When he pulled back the tarp flap to enter Eden’s Emporium, the sight that greeted him didn’t exactly boast efficiency and haste. Instead, Shiro lounged over a counter, human hand buried in the mane of the fluffiest cat Keith had ever seen in his life. The thing was sitting in a baby hamper strapped around the torso of an alien that Keith could only assume was Eden, who flashed a dazzling smile at him as he entered. He might have taken more stock of the four arms and green-tinted skin indicative of a ruthless Unilu trader; but in the moment Keith barely cared, his attention entirely swept up by the shop’s chaotic aesthetic. 

Every surface of the room was lined with plants, giving the shop’s interior the appearance of a lush jungle. Keith recognized a couple species as being native to Montressor; while others had vines that writhed and slithered of their own accord, far too alien for Keith to identify. At the front counter, odd trinkets of varying degrees of uselessness were strewn about in a display case—a jar of dirt, a used candlestick, the fossilized remains of a sand-rat, and other strange objects that Keith couldn’t name.

“Welcome, friend!”

The shop owner’s voice garnered the attention of Shiro, who—without pausing in his ministrations—turned and, spotting Keith, shot him a grin and proceeded to point at the pampered kitten with a cybernetic finger. “Keith— _cat_ ,” he greeted giddily, as if Keith had suddenly lost the ability to see. 

He froze in the doorway, inhaling deeply as he attempted to control his breathing. “To be clear,” he began, wincing as he realized Griffin 2.0 had used that exact same verbiage, “—while I’ve been wandering around in the sun, you’ve been… petting a cat.”

“ _Sheesh_ , kid. I thought you _wanted_ to wander around,” Shiro reasoned, oblivious to Keith’s unintelligible response of: “I _did_.” 

“Anyways,” his cousin continued, rolling his eyes in fond exasperation. “I haven’t _just_ been ‘petting a cat’. I also bought the suits, y’know.” Shiro angled himself toward the store owner, shooting them a conspiratorial smile. “Some people just don’t appreciate the finer things in life.” 

Without warning, he leaned towards the cat, moving to scratch at the bottom of its chin. To Keith’s embarrassment, his cousin’s voice took on a higher pitch as he cooed at the blissfully immobile creature sagging against Eden’s front. “Do they, Miso? You sweet little baby, Adam would love you; yes he would, _yes he_ —”

Keith pointedly cleared his throat, and Shiro sighed in disappointment. “Sorry Eden. Baby cousin has spoken.” He saluted, all the while flashing the four-armed alien his most obnoxious— _kids; am I right?—_ grin before bending to hoist his duffle bag off the floor. 

(Sometimes, Keith wondered how old Shiro thought he was. The man had barely turned 29, for star’s sake.)

As his cousin backed towards the entrance, hand raised in farewell, Eden shot the two of them a sharp-toothed grin. “Don’t be strangers, now!”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Shiro promised. “You have a good one, and take care of that handsome devil of yours!” 

The ‘handsome devil’ in question mewled loudly, and Shiro blew the thing a kiss before turning on his heel and slipping through the tent flaps. Keith scrambled after him, falling into stride as they rejoined the crowd.

“Who the fuck _are you_?” Keith hissed, struggling to keep pace. “Like, what the fuck _was_ thatback there?”

“That, little cuz, was how you do business.”

Keith squinted up at him, wondering if he’d had too much heat for one day. “By. Baby-talking a cat.”

Shiro snorted, breaking into an easy grin. “ _No_. By being friendly.” 

“They were Unilu,” Keith responded incredulously. “They’re not exactly known for _friendly_ , Shiro.”

His cousin shot him a sideways smile. “Maybe not, but there was a sale, Keith. Least I could do was give her cat some love. And for your information, I also just _happen to_ _like cats_ , so—” Shiro stuck his tongue out, “—leave me the hell alone.”

Keith shoved at him with his elbow. “And what was the sale, huh?” he asked hotly. “What, two spacesuits in exchange for your first child?”

“No,” Shiro replied, dragging the word out as if he were making a great effort to be patient. “Like I said. It was a _sale_.”

“What then?”

Shiro beamed smugly, a look that said: _I thought you’d never ask_. “Well, the first price she offered for them was my arm,” he explained, flexing his cybernetic. 

Keith paled. “ _Wha_ —that doesn’t fucking _come_ _off_ — _”_

“Which I explained to her,” he patiently interjected, waving a hand. “We haggled for a bit, took a break to talk about her cat, haggled some more, and then…”

He lifted a hand to comb through his hair. “We settled on a lock of hair.”

Silence fell over them as Keith’s brain buffered. Then: “What the _fuck_ does she need your hair for?”

His cousin heaved a full-bodied laugh, clearly pleased by Keith’s reaction. “I dunno! Nefarious purposes, I bet,” he teased, wiggling his fingers in Keith’s face. 

Keith swatted away the offending digits with a scowl. “She could use it to clone you.”

“O-kay buddy, you’ve been watching too many films.”

“She _could_.”

They’d arrived back at the docks, and a queasy feeling passed through Keith as he spotted the Disaster Area up ahead. To his relief, it appeared that Griffin 2.0 was nowhere to be found, even after Keith had cast a surreptitious look around.

“What’s up with you?”

“Huh?”

Shiro gestured widely at his being. “This. Something happen?”

Heat flooded his face. Normally, he would probably have admitted to the fight; he’d never liked lying to Shiro. But today… today, things were supposed to be different. 

A fresh start, and Keith had already screwed it up. 

“Nothing. M’ just hot,” he grunted, just as the two of them passed the spot. The mess clearly hadn’t been cleaned, and the crowd parted around it with wrinkled noses and hearty complaints regarding the rancid smell.

Shiro spared the spot a glance, his eyes widening before darting down to Keith’s boots. _Please don’t ask about it, please don’t ask about it_ , Keith chanted in his mind. As if he’d heard, his cousin cleared his throat and slowly acquiesced to Keith’s answer with a nod—though he still looked entirely unconvinced. “Well, we’re dock 22, and this is dock… ”

“19,” Keith hastily filled in, spotting the number on a nearby post and keen to draw Shiro’s attention elsewhere.

“So the _Melenor_ is somewhere right up there.” His cousin gestured ahead, excitement palpable in his voice. “You ready to meet our new home for the next few months?”

Trying to match his enthusiasm, Keith shot him a smile. To his delight, he found that his heart was racing with anticipation that had not been dampened by any unpleasant encounters with random jerks. “I was born ready.”

… 

Stepping onto the ship felt like the most important moment of Keith’s life. 

The _Queen Melenor_ was stately and elegant: all smooth, sanded wood and full, billowy sails. Although Keith spotted the occasional divot indicative of her travels, it was clear that the ship was well-loved, and that someone put painstaking effort into her upkeep.

Beside him, Shiro gave a low whistle. “She’s a beaut, alright.”

Tongue-tied, Keith had just opened his mouth to try to find the words to respond when a voice from behind them broke into their bubble.

“Welcome!”

Startled, Keith and Shiro both jumped as the voice’s owner came into view, practically sliding in front of the two of them with enough enthusiasm to rival Shiro’s apparent love for cats. 

“You two must be Keith and Shiro! Unless you’re not; in which case I’d kindly ask you to leave immediately, as you are in fact on the wrong ship.”

As he took in the man’s lanky stature, full orange mustache, and coiffed hair, Keith found himself suppressing a grin. He didn’t think he’d ever met anyone who more perfectly embodied the sound of their own voice. 

Shiro, on the other hand, seemed to have taken more stock of the man’s attire—most notable being the navy-blue peacoat with various medals and insignia adorning the lapel. “No, that’s us!” Shiro hurried, pulling Keith toward him with a hand around his shoulder. “I’m Shiro, and this—” Keith ducked out of his hold with a burning face. “—is Keith. And I’m guessing you’re Lieutenant Smythe?”

The man clapped his gloved hands together in delight. “Right you are, my boy!” He leaned towards Shiro conspiratorially with a glint in his eye. “But please, call me Coran. ‘Lieutenant Smythe’ was my father.”

When neither Shiro nor Keith reacted, Coran threw his head back and laughed, wiping an imaginary tear from his eye. “Just a little sailor humor for you; there’ll be plenty more where that came from, never fear!” 

“Oh, I’m fearing, alright,” Keith muttered, and Shiro elbowed him hard in the ribs. 

“Is Captain Allura around?” his cousin asked, a little too loudly. 

If Coran had heard Keith’s remark, he showed no sign, eyes glistening with adoration as he pointed upward. “The Captain is aloft,” he explained with a voice full of reverence, and Keith followed his eyes up just in time to watch as someone slid down a rope, cloak fluttering around their legs as they landed daintily before the trio. 

_Well,_ Keith thought, mildly impressed. _She’s certainly got a hell of a knack for dramatic timing._

She wasn’t exactly his _type_ , but even Keith had to admit—the Captain was _gorgeous_. 

He’d met a handful of Alteans who’d passed through the Benbow (enough so to have expected Coran and Allura’s pointed ears, as well as the glowing crescent-shaped marks atop their cheekbones). 

None were so ethereal as the Captain.

Pure white hair—so white that Shiro’s nearly looked grey in contrast—billowed out from beneath the captain’s hat, reaching down to her waist and tapering off into little curls. Her dark complexion was only highlighted by her baby-blue peacoat, fitted around the waist with a belt-holster that housed a wicked-looking pistol. Well-worn boots rose up to her mid-thigh over fitted black pants. 

All-in-all, she was exactly the kind of hero that Keith had always pictured when he’d listen to his father’s stories.

He squirmed as her sharp blue eyes flicked between him and his cousin, calculating and scrutinous and boasting deadly intelligence. “Misters Shirogane and Kogane, I presume?” Like Coran, her voice was accented—but where his voice was bubbly and bright, hers was as elegant and refined as her appearance. 

Shiro cleared his throat, and Keith imagined that he’d been similarly affected by the captain’s intimidating aura. “Uh—yes. Ma’am. Captain. Yes.”

Unable to help himself, Keith snorted, and the captain’s attention snapped toward him. As she fixed him with an indecipherable look, Keith felt his mirth ebb away. He averted his gaze, folding his arms protectively over his chest.

“I’m pleased to make your acquaintance,” she offered, sounding anything _but_. “As you’ve so perceptively surmised, I am Captain Allura. You may address me as ‘Captain’ or ‘ma’am’. Do I make myself clear?”

“Entirely, Captain,” Shiro eagerly replied, throwing in a cheesy little salute for good measure. Keith rolled his eyes, fighting a smirk as he allowed his gaze to wander. 

“I said,” came the captain’s voice after a brief silence. “Do I make myself. Clear.”

The tone of her voice had Keith’s gaze snapping back in her direction, where he found three sets of eyes fixed upon him. _Oh_. He hadn’t realized he’d been expected to answer, and he tried not to prickle in agitation under her stern, authoritative gaze. “Yes… ma’am,” he added after Shiro nudged at his foot.

Her eyes lingered on him for a few disconcerting seconds before she was turning to regard Shiro. “I must verify that the two of you are fit for manual labor. If there are any pre-existing health conditions that Coran and I should be aware of, I’ll kindly ask that you enlighten us now.”

“No, ma’am,” Shiro hurried. “We’re fit to work, just—” He flexed his cybernetic with a self-conscious, apologetic look that Keith wanted to smack off his face. “My arm is a cybernetic if, uh—if that matters.”

She stared at his arm for all of a second before she hummed, turning to Coran to remark, “Well. That makes three.”

Both frowning, Keith and Shiro exchanged a look, but before either of them could ask what she meant, the captain continued. “Mr. Shirogane, you’ll accompany me to meet our Sailing-Master, Thorn—I believe she’s completing a routine inspection off-ship. Due to your navigational qualifications and experience, you will apprentice her for the duration of our voyage.”

She leveled Shiro with an expectant look, and he quickly nodded. “Yes, Captain. Thank you.”

Her steely gaze passed over Keith, once again hovering a beat too long before returning back to Coran. “Mr. Kogane will report to our Quartermaster Mr. Silver, but for now he can lend Mr. McClain a hand in the galley.”

A pang of disappointment shot through Keith. “The galley?” he asked with a wrinkled nose; but the captain showed no signs of hearing, barreling on as if he hadn’t spoken.

“Please do me the utmost favor of showing him the way.”

Coran sent her a dazzling smile. “Your wish is my command!”

For the first time since they’d met her, the captain’s mouth twitched up into something that wasn’t a frown. “Thank you, Lieutenant. I trust that onboard preparations have been seen to?” 

“Ay, Captain,” he responded with a salute. “She’s ship-shape and ready for sailing.”

“Good. Top work as always, Mr. Smythe, thank you.” With a nod, she turned back to Shiro and Keith, and that hint of a smile had vanished. 

“In the meantime, I shall assist Mr. Silver off-ship with our loading delay, but first—” she raised an eyebrow at Shiro, her only warning of departure before turning sharply on her heel. When Shiro remained rooted to the spot, she called, “Do keep pace, Mr. Shirogane,” over her shoulder. 

Shiro threw Keith a final, desperate look that could only be interpreted as ‘ _help me’_ before scrambling down the gangplank after the captain. 

In their wake, an awkward silence fell over the two men before it was broken by Coran’s overly zealous voice. “So! You’ve met the captain!” he proclaimed, as if Keith were unaware. Stepping forward, Coran settled at Keith’s side and clapped a hand against his back, gently nudging him into motion. “She may seem a little rough at first, but she’ll warm up to you in no time at all!” he promised, ushering them across the deck toward a descending flight of stairs. 

As they headed toward what Keith could only assume was the galley, he belatedly realized that they weren’t the only ones above deck. Gathered along the opposite rail was a group of their hired crew, standing with their heads bent together as they murmured amongst themselves. Keith only realized he’d been staring when one of them—a big burly alien with a face in the spot where his stomach should be—nudged the crewmember to their left, jutting their chin in Keith’s direction. When they all realized they had an audience, their conversation immediately ceased; and the crew members opted instead to watch Keith in dead silence as he passed. One of them—an alien with tentacles for legs—caught his gaze and smirked, their forked tongue flicking out to taste the air as they winked at him.

Keith quickly averted his gaze, too unnerved by their eerie staring to challenge them. 

Seemingly oblivious to the crew’s strange behavior, Coran babbled on undeterred as he steered Keith toward the top of the stairs. “I’ll wager Mr. McClain will be well-pleased to have the company. I’ve no doubt the two of you will be thick as thieves!” He laughed, as if just realizing something incredibly funny. “Might as well hope so, eh? Seeing as the two of you’ll be spending so much time together!”

“Right,” Keith grumbled, confused but feeling too thrown by the impromptu staring contest to formulate any good questions. “What’re we meant to do in the galley, anyway?” 

They began to descend the stairs, their footsteps loud on the creaking wood. “I believe he’s currently loading the pantry—I’m sure he’ll be terribly grateful for the help. The poor thing suffered quite the mishap this morning, didn’t you, my boy?” Coran called, raising his voice slightly as they cleared the last step.

The room they’d stepped into was tiny. In its center sat a table, littered with a mess of fruit and vegetable peels that was beginning to spread to the floor. Crates lined the sides of the galley, boxing the room in on all sides in a way that gave it a homey, claustrophobic feel. 

On the opposite end of the galley (mere feet from where Keith and Coran stood at the bottom of the stairs), someone grunted as they rummaged through a cabinet under a rusted sink. Although the top half of their torso was completely obscured from view, they seemed to have heard the Lieutenant just fine.

“Ohhhh yeah,” they called, exaggeratedly dragging out the first word; their voice nearly too muffled to clearly hear. With another grunt, they shimmied backward, extracting themselves from the cramped confines of the cabinet. They straightened, dusting their palms against their legs as they turned, talking all the while. “I’m tellin’ you, Mr. Smythe; the guy was a complete— _jackass_ ,” he breathed, his voice falling away weakly as his eyes met Keith’s. 

_Oh no. Oh fuck, fuck,_ fuck _no._

Keith was convinced that the universe had it out for him. He wasn’t sure how else to explain the boy in front of him, blinking in surprise at him with wide, two-toned eyes. He wasn’t sure how else to explain the presence of Griffin 2.0, _here on this ship_ , out of any of the hundreds of ships he could have belonged to. 

In his panic, Keith almost wasn’t even aware that Coran had started speaking. As he babbled, both boys stared at one another, too frozen in shock to move.

“He sounds entirely unpleasant, my boy. If you’d only had the chance to give him the good old what-for… you know, when I was a young man—”

“Coran,” the boy interrupted, a slow, wicked smile spreading across his face that Keith did _not_ like. His voice was laced with barely restrained glee, as if seeing Keith here was the most delicious surprise of his life. “ _Please_ tell me this is the other cabin boy.”

Keith unfroze, fists clenching at his side as he opened his mouth to deny—

“Hit the nail right on the head, my boy! Mr. McClain—oh, _bother_ formality! Lance, meet Keith Kogane. Keith, meet Lance: your new bunkmate!”

The boy—Lance, _what a fucking annoying name_ —was grinning now, hands splayed out over the table. “ _Charmed_ , Keith,” he purred, throwing in a wink for good measure.

Keith whirled on Coran, giving Lance his back. “Give me a new assignment. _Please_.” Behind him, Lance sniggered, and Keith suppressed an angry growl. “I’ll—I can help in the nest, or help Shiro with navigation stuff, or—”

“Nonsense, my boy!” Coran clapped him on the back. “This is the perfect fit for a strapping young lad such as yourself! No better way to build character than with a little nit and grit!”

Behind him, Lance hummed in agreement. Keith turned to find him sitting on the table, having swept a good portion of scraps onto the floor in order to make himself comfortable. In his hand was a small burlap sack of tyne-nuts, and Keith watched as he tossed one into his mouth before speaking. “Pretty sure the nit and grit is all over the floor.”

As if it were the funniest joke he’d ever heard, Coran guffawed, doubling over to clutch at his stomach as he laughed. With his head down, he failed to see the nut that sailed across the room, hitting Keith squarely between the eyes; nor did he see the lewd gesture that accompanied the flying projectile. 

By the time Coran had recovered, Keith was rubbing furiously at his forehead, willing every molecule in his body to keep from a physical altercation.

“You’ve got a jolly-good sense of humor on you, Mr. McClain!” The lieutenant nudged Keith in the arm. “You see? Won’t be a dull moment down here!”

Keith sighed, resigning himself to his fate with a monotoned, “Yippee.”

To his surprise, the remark seemed to garner a laugh out of Lance, who watched him with a nasty glint in his eyes. “I’ll take good care of him, Coran; you can be sure of that.”

“Splendid to hear!” Seemingly persuaded, Coran backed toward the stairs. “I shall be up top if either of you needs me,” he informed, reaching out to ruffle Keith’s hair. Keith grumbled, swatting the Lieutenant’s hands away. “I’ll see you two at the launch!” 

And with that, the one thing grounding Keith to sanity disappeared up the stairs, leaving both boys in a silence swimming with tension.

“So.” Lance swung his legs up onto the table, kicking more scraps onto the floor. “This is pretty fuckin’ rich, huh? I mean, what are the _odds_?”

Keith shrugged, folding his arms across his chest and scowling at the boy across from him.“Fate’s a bitch, I guess,” he growled.

Lance hummed, popping a nut into his mouth and chewing thoughtfully. “Or,” he said slowly, digging into the burlap, “—Fate is a fuckin’ _genius_.” 

Another nut came flying through the air, this one bouncing off his cheek, and Keith saw red.

“Throw another one at me, and I swear to the _stars_ I’ll—”

“ _Bup bup bup_! I don’t think so, _pal_. Penalty for in-fighting among the crew is solitary down in the brig. Captain’s supposedly pretty strict about it, too.” Lance launched another nut in his direction, and Keith barely managed to dodge it.

“You’re _such_ a tool.”

“Takes one to know one though, right?”

Keith flushed as his own words from no more than an hour prior were echoed back to him. “Okay, look. Uh. Lance.”

Lance made a show of pulling himself forward until he was sitting at the edge of the table, leaning forward and cupping his face with his hands as if Keith was about to read him a bed-time story. He stared at Keith with wide, expectant eyes, legs dangling off the table and kicking childishly back and forth. “Haircut.”

Trying not to bristle at the infuriating nickname, Keith clenched his jaw. “How about we just… keep to ourselves, okay? You don’t talk to me, and I don’t talk to you. No harm done.”

He wasn’t sure how Lance’s answering laugh managed to be more annoying than the stupid nickname. “You really don’t get it, do ya, dollface?”

“Don’t fucking call me—”

“We report to the same guy, _dipshit_ —is that better? We both report to Silver. Which _means_ ,” he stood, shoving the burlap sack into his pocket. “Wherever you go, I go. We do the same jobs, report to the same people—” He gestured to a bedroll tucked at the base of the sink cabinets. “We sleep in the same room.”

Lance stepped forward, smirking shamelessly at Keith as he took a confident step into his space. “Like it or not, haircut, you’re stuck with me. And I promise you—” They were inches apart now; so close that Keith could almost feel Lance’s breath on his face. “I will make your life a living hell.”

Abruptly, the other boy drew away, walking toward the stairs with his hands in his pockets. Keith’s heart raced as he tried to sift through what had just happened, though Lance’s slow retreat from the room seemed more immediately pressing.

“Wait, where the fuck are you going?”

Lance paused mid-step, and when he turned back to face the room, Keith gestured angrily at the crates. “Aren’t we supposed to be—I don’t know, _doing something_?” he seethed.

“Here’s the thing.” Hands still in his pockets, Lance leaned back against the wall, one foot propped up on the lowest step. “I’ve been walking crates over from the market since piss-o’-clock in the morning, you know? Really does a number on a guy’s back.”

Keith _growled_. “I’m not doing this shit alone.”

Most likely trying to fuel Keith’s anger, Lance laughed again, the sound tapering off into a sigh. “You’re so fuckin’ cute when you’re angry.”

Keith whirled around, grabbing a handful of scraps from the table and throwing them in Lance’s direction. He dodged them easily, sniggering as Keith finally lost his cool. “Fuck off!”

As if Keith hadn’t spoken, Lance hummed, gesturing around the room. “I took care of all the storage and sorting. All that’s left is clean-up. You can sweep up the scraps and throw ‘em in a sack, or something. Should be a spare one lying around.”

“You’re seriously not going to help.”

“Nope. I haven’t seen the sky in like, two hours. Plus,” he winked, leaning in conspiratorially and bringing a hand up to his mouth as if telling Keith a secret. “It’s kinda been a rough day.”

Keith’s blood ran cold, but it wasn’t from Lance’s words. He watched, almost in slow motion, as Lance lowered his hand; cybernetic digits whirring as his fingers curled back into a fist. Before Keith even knew what he was doing, his own hand was darting out to grab Lance’s wrist and pulling it toward himself for a closer look. The sleeve covering his wrist fell back to reveal an entire cybernetic arm, complete with whirring gears and cogs—a much more primitive piece of tech than Shiro had been equipped with.

_Beware the cyborg._

He wasn’t sure exactly how it happened, but one second he was gaping at Lance’s arm; and the next, he was being slammed against a wall by the collar of his jacket, pinned with surprising strength.

“Don’t you dare,” Lance hissed, his voice deadly, “—grab me like that _ever_ again. You understand?”

Keith’s brain was empty of all thought, full of nothing but static. It had to be a coincidence; there was no way the boy in front of him was responsible for the destruction of his home. Yet at the same time... 

_Beware the cyborg._ The last, desperate warning of a dying man. 

Lance gave him a shake, his eyes burning with fury. “I said: _do you fucking understand_ , Keith?”

He wanted to shove the other boy away; wanted to reverse their positions and demand answers for the Benbow, for Thace, for his _father_ … but something in Lance’s eyes quelled his ferocity. 

“I understand,” Keith whispered into the space between them. “I’m sorry,” he added; and he realized that he _meant_ it. Something about the cold rage in Lance’s eyes was deeply sobering. In the short amount of time that he’d known him, Keith had certainly seen the other boy angry—but this felt different. Serious.

Clearly not having expected an apology, Lance blinked at him in surprise, still tightly clutching at his lapel. An awkward silence filled the space between them; and for a few seconds they stared unmoving at one another, frozen in place until Keith cleared his throat. “Uh. No in-fighting, right?”

If he’d been hoping the comment would restart Lance’s motor, he was right. He watched the other boy’s larynx bob as he swallowed, fury fading from his expression. “This doesn’t count,” he testily replied. “’S more like… rough-housing.” His grip on Keith’s jacket loosened. “No rules against rough-housing.”

“Good to know.”

Lance stepped away, and Keith released a breath he hadn’t realized that he’d been holding. “I’d get the place clean before Silver gets back,” Lance warned, moving backward up the stairs and nearly tripping over a step. 

Keith rolled his eyes. “Watch where you’re going, you lunatic.”

Finally, the smug, infuriating smirk returned to Lance’s face; the sharp, lively glint returning to his eyes. “Gotta admit, that’s pretty funny coming from you.” He chuckled to himself before turning to tromp up the stairs, leaving Keith down below. He was still staring after Lance when the other boy paused, turning his head just enough to shoot Keith a lopsided grin.

“I’ll see you at the launch, _cabin boy._ ”

With that, Lance McClain was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HOPE YOU ALL HAD A GOOD TIME (I know I did). If you got to the end of this chapter and enjoyed it, please leave a kudo, or yell about it in the comments! Your feedback is my life-force (give me sustenance, nom nom)


	4. The Crew

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Towering over them was the most enormous human being Keith had ever seen. He was a tank of a man—at least seven feet tall and pure muscle; barrel-chested and imposing. 
> 
> It wasn’t the height that stole the air from Keith’s lungs; nor was it the muscle mass. The Captain’s voice rose up from his memories, her strange comment finally clicking into place. 
> 
> _That makes three._
> 
> _Fuck,_ was Keith’s only coherent thought as he gaped up at a red cybernetic eye and an arm made of Altean cyber-tech. _Fuck_. 
> 
> Three indeed.
> 
> “You must be Mister Kogane.” The red glow of his eye felt uncomfortably probing as it trailed across Keith’s face. “I am this ship’s Quartermaster. You may call me—”
> 
> “Silver,” Keith breathed, unable to help himself as he took another step backward, his back hitting the ship’s banister.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WELCOME BACK EVERYONE! 
> 
> This chapter has been a complete doozy to try to get out to y'all - got a little burnt out this week, but I'm so grateful for the wonderful people who encouraged me on! Very happy to be publishing this. 
> 
> You'll probably notice that the chapter count has updated - and it may do so again! I don't want to rush anything to reach a certain count, but the fic hopefully won't be much longer than 12. 
> 
> As usual, you can all find me on Tumblr [here](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/barnes-n-romanoff). Big thanks this week to my mom and Bailey for editing, and to my beta readers Farah and Kyra 💙

It took Keith the better part of an hour to fix the mess in the galley. 

He might have made quicker work of it if his mind hadn’t been plagued by thoughts of Lance—but the more he toiled, the more irritation flickered and burned through his veins until it was swallowing him whole. 

_Stupid Lance._

Stupid Lance with his stupid eyes and his stupid cybernetics. Stupid ship, and stupid crew, and—

Keith swore as he kicked at a cabinet a little harder than he’d intended. Pain coursed up his leg, and he bit back a yell of frustration.

Balling his hands into fists, he pounded at his thigh as he waited for the after-shock of pain to pass.

He’d been so hopeful when they’d left Montressor that morning. 

Saying goodbye to his father had been the hardest thing he’d ever had to do in his life. It wasn’t as if Keith had never envisioned leaving the Wastes; on the contrary, the fantasy of a new life elsewhere had been the subject of his dreams ever since he’d been old enough to envision it. 

He’d just never imagined that he’d be leaving his father behind.

As their skiff had risen into the air, and he’d cast a parting glance at the tear-streaked face behind him, Keith had told himself it would be worth it. Losing his father, if only for the time being, would be worth it for the golden promise of opportunity that lay ahead.

Turned out ‘golden promise’ was just more of the murky, stagnant back-water that Keith had been drowning in his whole life. 

_Cabin boy. Of all things._

He bent to retrieve another handful of scraps from the ground, part of the table litter that Lance had kicked onto the floor—undoubtedly a deliberate and sadistic move on his part, considering he’d planned to make Keith clean it all. 

Grumbling, he shoved the scraps into the half-full burlap sack in his hold, trying and failing not to fixate on the fact that this was his life now. 

He turned sharply, looking for something softer than a cabinet on which he might impose his ire. Spotting Lance’s bed-roll, he grinned maniacally, striding toward it with heavy, angry steps. With one mighty kick, he sent it sailing across the room, and—

Something small flew out of the roll and clattered to the floor, rolling out of sight. The smile slipped from Keith’s face as he scrambled after it, eyes desperately attempting to track it. He lowered himself to his knees, peering under the table and frowning as he realized that he was unlikely to find the item among the mess of scraps. He was just about to give up the search when something glittered at the edge of his peripheral vision. With mounting curiosity, he reached out with a gloved hand to brush away fruit peels and dust, plucking the item from the mess and letting it roll into his hand.

In the center of his palm sat a marble, compact and lightweight, yet big enough that his fingers only just managed to close around it. Keith eased himself off his knees to sit with his back pressed against the cabinet, bringing the marble to his face for closer inspection. 

Color swirled within the stone—or was it a gem? Keith wasn’t sure, but he _was_ sure that he’d never seen anything like it. Blue and green twirled together as they danced, hues shifting as they merged harmoniously one second, fighting for dominance the next. At the marble’s core, amber rippled up to join the others, flashing like lightning where the two crashed and speckling the stone with twinkling gold stars. 

It was one of the most captivating things Keith had ever seen.

Above him, the deck creaked, and Keith was startled from his trance. It occurred to him that the beautiful item in his hand belonged to _Lance_ , and that he preferred not to be caught with it. He got the strange sense that it wasn’t something he was meant to see; nor, indeed, _find_. 

He stood, cradling the stone carefully in his palm as he retrieved Lance’s bed-roll. Shame crept into his chest as he returned the bedding to its place against the counter, pinching the marble tightly between his fingers as he contemplated how to stow it.

After a couple seconds spent debating, Keith sighed, tucking it into his unoccupied pocket. He knew he was asking for trouble, but returning it to Lance’s own hands was the only way he could think to ensure that the marble returned safely to its owner. There was no guarantee that the stone wouldn’t just fall back out if he simply slipped it into the bedding, and he couldn’t risk it being lost to the galley.

Unsure why he cared so much, he rubbed a hand down the side of his face, exhausted by his own emotions. He _hated_ Lance, of that much he was sure; yet… 

Yet the marble felt… important, hidden away from the rest of the world in the other boy’s bed-roll as if it were a precious secret. It was clearly—Keith surmised—a sentimental token, considering Lance’s very obvious lack of personal effects.

Recollection of the marble’s colors flashed through his mind, and as the image of two mismatched eyes joined it, Keith finally realized exactly what the stone reminded him of. 

Fleetingly, Keith wondered if the marble had been gifted to him by a romantic partner.

He scoffed at the thought, turning sharply to snatch the sack of trash from the floor and sweeping a half eaten _tungflower_ fruit off the table and into the bag. What did he fucking care, anyway?

Lance was an asshole, of that much Keith was certain. He’d probably lose his shit again if he found the stone out of place, or thought that Keith had gone through his stuff.

“Just tell him you knocked it over,” Keith muttered to himself, bending over to pick up a fruit pit the size of his fist. There were teeth marks all over it, as if someone had tried to gnaw through the damn thing. “Put it in his stupid hand and walk aw—”

He didn’t register the footsteps on the stairs until they’d nearly reached the bottom. Without turning, he straightened, schooling his face back into impassivity. The back of his neck prickled under a silent gaze. “Hey, dickhead,” he growled, irritated by Lance’s silence and unwilling to dignify the boy with his full attention. He resumed cleaning, leaning over to pluck something slimy from the counter. “What, you come back to do your _job_?”

“Mister Kogane.”

Keith had never jumped so hard in his life. He clutched the trash sack to his chest, whirling toward the source of the voice that decidedly did _not_ belong to Lance.

Leaning against the rail at the bottom of the stairwell was one of the most intimidating aliens he’d ever seen. Though their lithe figure was relatively unassuming, their muscles were evidenced by the flex of their bare biceps as they folded their arms across their chest—the top set of arms, because the alien in the galley had _three whole sets_. Behind them, a thick scaly tail ridged with spikes rested on the stairs, its tip ending three steps above them. Even in the dimly lit galley, Keith could make out a light green tint to their skin, emerald scales littering their cheeks, hairline and arms like patchwork. Slitted, reptilian eyes bore unblinkingly into his own, and Keith fought the urge to take a step back.

“You’re not Lance,” was all he managed to wheeze.

The alien cocked their head, still staring blankly at him. “No.”

Silence fell over them, Keith still frozen in place under that damned stare. After a few seconds, an opaque film shuttered sideways over their eyes, and Keith realized they’d finally blinked. Freed from that unrelenting, watchful gaze, Keith lowered the sack from his chest. “Uh. Can I. Help you?”

A forked tongue flicked out to taste the air. “No.”

Keith snorted nervously, turning to busy himself once more with the trash. There was only the little corner near Lance’s bed-roll now (he’d been contemplating leaving trash in that one spot as a fun little _fuck you_ ).

“Okay… ” Keith muttered, dragging the word out. “This the part where you introduce yourself, then?” 

No response. 

Suppressing a shudder, Keith was just about to drop everything and excuse himself—though how he was going to get past the immobile alien on the stairs, he wasn’t sure—when they spoke.

“Thorn.”

 _Oh_. Keith’s gaze snapped up to meet slitted eyes. “Thorn. Sailing Master, right?”

They nodded, the movement almost imperceptible. In a blur, their tail was whipping forward, pulling a dagger from the sheath at their waist and flinging it across the room. Keith released an undignified yelp, scrambling sideways and nearly toppling into the crates Lance had oh-so-painstakingly stacked. 

“Weapons Master, too,” was all they had to add, and Keith swore he saw the corner of their mouth twitch upward. 

He swallowed, trying to bring his breathing back to something more human and less frightened desert mouse. “You—” his voice came out slightly higher than he’d intended, and he cleared his throat. “You got a real way with people, Thorn.” 

This time, he wasn’t imagining it. The side of their mouth lifted into a smile that showcased a singular fang. “You and Shirogane will train under my guidance for the duration of our journey.”

Keith blinked. “Train?”

“Yes.”

He felt his eyebrows knit together. “For… ?”

Thorn raised a scaly eyebrow. “Space can be perilous, Mr. Kogane. One can never be too careful.”

“Right,” Keith carefully replied. His heart raced in his chest, hammering so hard he could feel it in his fingertips. Thorn’s face remained carefully blank, and it was impossible to discern a statement of fact from a veiled threat. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Clever boy. Shirogane tells me you have come unarmed—that is _not_ so clever.”

Heat rose to Keith’s face. He hadn’t mentioned to Shiro the pocket-knife his father had lovingly stowed in his boot. “Yeah, well.” He folded his arms, trying for a casual shrug. For whatever reason, he was struck with the impulse to keep his secrets close to himself. “Dad never _was_ big on weapons. Always said real power lies in words.”

The alien across the room hummed. “Admirable, but words won’t always serve you out in open space.”

Reluctantly, Keith nodded.

“Good. We begin first thing tomorrow.”

“But how will I—”

“I will provide you with a weapon from my own stash.” They gave him a long look, and—feeling suddenly vulnerable—Keith shifted uncomfortably. “I have something in mind that may suit you.”

They blinked, and Keith turned to clean the last vestiges of trash from around Lance’s bedding. “Thanks,” he mumbled. “Guess I’ll see you later?”

“Your brother sent me to collect you for the launch.”

Keith straightened again, tying the trash sack shut and kicking it aside. “He’s not—whatever,” he hurried, waving a dismissive hand. It wasn’t the first time Shiro had referred to the two of them as brothers rather than cousins, and—although Keith usually attempted to clear the confusion—he would have been lying if he said that he didn’t secretly love it. “Why couldn’t he get me himself?” 

“He is on deck aiding Misters Silver and McClain.”

“Fantastic,” Keith grumbled, heaving an anticipatory sigh and suddenly hyper-aware of the marble in his pocket. “Let’s get this over with.”

He took a step forward, stopping in his tracks when Thorn held out a singular, clawed hand. “My knife, please.”

Turning, Keith found the weapon still embedded in the soft wood of the wall. He’d been too terrified of the deadly projectile to notice before, but the knife hadn’t actually landed anywhere near where he’d been standing, sinking into a beam several feet to his right. 

Realizing that he’d never been in any real danger, Keith allowed himself a smirk, fingers closing around the weapon’s hilt and yanking it clean out of the wall. 

“Gotta admit,” he muttered, turning the knife in his hands as he examined the wickedly sharp blade. “That was a pretty neat trick.”

He almost expected Thorn to dismiss the comment, but he was gifted instead with another almost-smile. “No trick. Just precision and skill.”

Keith couldn’t help the grin creeping onto his face. “You gonna teach me to do that?”

To his surprise, Thorn’s smile stretched into a knowing smirk. “And more, Mr. Kogane.”

Nodding, Keith crossed the room, no longer feeling frozen under the alien’s unblinking stare. It felt as if the frigid tension between them had started to melt, and—although he had yet to meet Silver—Keith found himself wishing he was apprentice to Thorn instead. 

_Shiro, you lucky bastard._

He flipped the knife ever so carefully, offering the hilt to the still-waiting hand. “I should probably warn you,” Keith offered testily, not quite sure why he felt the need to be so. “I’m not exactly the best student.”

They laughed, the sound so low and raspy in their chest that at first, Keith hardly recognized it for what it was.

“Always did like a challenge, Mister Kogane.”

… 

The deck looked very different than it had an hour prior. 

Where before there were only a handful of crewmembers milling about, the ship was now swarming with people. Aliens of races that Keith did not recognize shoved past him, calling out commands and affirmatives in turn as they readied the ship for launch. As Thorn and Keith emerged from the galley, Thorn was immediately bombarded by the crew and whisked away to help with preparations.

Left to his own devices, Keith savored the euphoric excitement fluttering in his chest at the thought of the impending launch—though the feeling was quelled nearly instantly when his eyes landed on Shiro, standing several paces away and deep in conversation with… 

_Awesome. Just great._

He made a beeline for them, watching as Lance flexed his cybernetic, saying something that made Shiro snort. Lance wiggled his eyebrows, and Shiro laughed even harder, clutching his chest as he threw his head back.

_Fuck no._

Keith struggled to suppress a growl as he stomped toward them, glowering at Lance the whole way. As if he could sense Keith’s anger on the wind, Lance met his eyes, his smile falling into a smirk as he registered Keith’s fury. 

“Well, look who survived the galley!”

Before Keith could tell Lance to fuck himself, Shiro was turning toward him, eyes alight as their gazes met. “Keith, hey! Lance was just telling me what you did! That was real sweet of you, kid,” he finished with a fond smile, reaching out to ruffle his hair.

Feeling completely thrown, Keith batted his hand away, eyebrows furrowing in suspicion. “I—what?”

“You know!” Shiro clapped him on the back. “Volunteering to finish the cleaning?” he hedged.

Turning to level a flat look at Lance, Keith muttered, “I did, did I?”

Lance laughed good-naturedly, stepping forward to place a hand on Keith’s shoulder, who shrugged it off far more aggressively than necessary. The other boy ignored him, undeterred by his hostility. “ _Such_ a help. Not sure what I’d do without my fellow cabin boy.”

“Can I talk to you?” Keith hissed, turning sharply on him. “Alone?”

With an ever-widening smirk, Lance shoved his hands in his pockets, shooting Keith a wink that made him want to punch the other boy in the jaw. “Sure thing, buddy.” He turned to Shiro, oblivious to the fists clenched at Keith’s sides. “See you in a bit, man. Cool talking to you.”

“Uh,” said Shiro, who looked like he was just realizing that he may have potentially missed something. “Yeah, you too—uh, Keith, are you…?”

“I’m fine,” Keith growled, sounding anything but. “Just need a word with my _buddy_.”

“Uh—”

“I’ll find you when we launch, okay?” Ignoring the confusion etched onto Shiro’s face, he turned on his heel and marched to the opposite end of the ship, Lance sauntering along at his side.

“So.” The other boy’s voice was once more colored with that teasing lilt that Keith hated. “Your brother seems nice. Or is it ‘cousin’? I feel like I keep hearing different things.”

“It doesn’t matter. Just don’t fucking talk to him.”

Lance laughed. “Yikes. I’m guessing he’s the one who gets invited to all the parties?”

Having finally reached a corner of the deck that felt somewhat free from chaos, Keith whirled on the other boy. “Fuck off. You don’t know a thing about us.”

“Eh.” Lance shrugged, folding his arms as he leaned against the banister. “Maybe not, but him? I know I like. You?” He clicked his tongue, looking Keith up and down with that same infuriating smirk. “Not so much.”

Keith turned to the side, grasping the banister with both hands as he tried to control his breathing. He closed his eyes, attempting to ignore Lance’s grin in his peripherals. “You have no idea how bad I wanna hit you.”

The banister beside him creaked. “I get that a lot.”

Peaking an eye open, Keith found Lance watching him with unveiled contempt. “And what does that tell you?”

Lance shrugged, surveying the deck. “That I run into a lot of people with anger issues?”

For a few seconds, Keith stared at him, completely speechless. When he could think of no appeal to reason that would pierce the other boy’s thick skull, he released a shaky breath. “You are… the most infuriating person I’ve ever met.”

He was rewarded with a sickly saccharine smile as Lance brought a hand to his heart. “Aw, haircut. I feel the same about you.”

Hands shaking with anger, Keith reached into his pocket, withdrawing the marble in a tight fist. “Here. I don’t fucking know why I even bothered.” Lance stared blankly at the proffered fist, and Keith shook it irately. “It’s your stupid rock, give me your fucking hand.”

Blinking in stunned silence, Lance raised a hand, and Keith dropped the marble into the other boy’s palm with shaking fingers. 

“There, now don’t talk to me until—”

“Did you go through my stuff?” Lance’s voice was deadly, it’s tone reminiscent of earlier in the galley. 

“Of course not,” Keith snapped. “I knocked your bed-roll over—”

“Don’t fucking touch my shit, Keith,” he hissed; and Keith realized that his hand, the one wrapped around his marble, was _trembling_.

“I didn’t; are you fucking listening?”

“It was wedged in. No way it just fell out.” Even Lance’s voice was shaking, and to Keith’s horror, his eyes looked glassy with unshed tears. “Don’t touch. My shit.”

“I didn’t!” He was unable to prevent himself from yelling, his arms thrown out at his sides. “I kicked your stupid roll, okay? I was mad, and that thing just went flying out, and I wanted to give it back to you to make sure it didn’t get lost again. Okay?”

Lance blinked in surprise, the anger leaving his face—and Keith _swore_ he saw a singular tear cascade down the boy’s cheek. “You—you kicked…?”

“ _Yes_.” Keith’s hands were practically in the air at this point. _Not guilty, officer._ “It was stupid, okay? But I didn’t go through your stuff. I know you don’t think much of me, but I’m—I’m not that kind of guy.”

For a disconcertingly long moment, Lance was silent, head bowed as he regarded the object in his hand. His expression was hooded, hidden behind the hair that hung over his eyes. 

His response was almost so quiet that Keith didn’t hear it. “Okay.”

Keith frowned, irritation building as he wished Lance would just look at him. He’d never been the best at reading people—or indeed, at _people_ in general—and he certainly had no idea what to make of this sudden shift in mood. “Okay…” he hedged, squinting at the other boy. “Is that… it?”

“Keith, please.”

 _What the fuck does he_ want _from me?_ Keith let his arms fall to his sides in exasperation, nose scrunched in bewildered agitation. “Please _what_?”

“I can’t do this with you right now.”

“Wha—do what?!” he asked incredulously.

“Keith, _please_ just leave me alone, I—”

“Well, well,” boomed a voice right behind Keith, and he whirled around so fast he nearly went careening into Lance. “Making friends, Little Blue?”

Towering over them was the most enormous human being Keith had ever seen. He was a tank of a man—at least seven feet tall and pure muscle; barrel-chested and imposing. 

It wasn’t the height that stole the air from Keith’s lungs; nor was it the muscle mass. The Captain’s voice rose up from his memories, her strange comment finally clicking into place. 

_That makes three._

_Fuck,_ was Keith’s only coherent thought as he gaped up at a red cybernetic eye and an arm made of Altean cyber-tech. _Fuck_. 

Three indeed.

“You must be Mister Kogane.” The red glow of his eye felt uncomfortably probing as it trailed across Keith’s face. “I am this ship’s Quartermaster. You may call me—”

“Silver,” Keith breathed, unable to help himself as he took another step backward, his back hitting the ship’s banister.

Silver’s eye glinted in the sunlight. “You’d do well not to interrupt your superiors, boy.”

Despite the man’s effortlessly successful intimidation, Keith found his hackles rising as less-than welcome memories resurfaced. He felt as if he were back at the Garrison; fourteen years old and shaking with anger as his commanding officer Iverson towered over him, red-faced and practically foaming at the mouth as he disciplined his most ‘troubled’ cadet. 

Before Keith could respond ( _thank the stars,_ he thought; he wasn’t sure what he would have said if given the chance), Silver was turning to Lance. “You wouldn’t be shirking your duties, would you?”

Lance, who’d been subtly trying to dry his eyes, floundered for words as he attempted to pull himself together. “I—no Sir, I was just—”

“He was just showing me around,” Keith interjected, moving to stand shoulder to shoulder with the other boy before he even knew what he was doing. From the corner of his eye, he saw Lance give him a surprised, owlish look; and it was the slight glistening wetness of his cheek that kept the words flowing from Keith’s mouth. “I distracted him.”

Silver cocked his head. That damnable eye roved over Keith’s face like a laser-beam, and he suppressed a shudder. 

Finally, his probing gaze drifted back over to Lance. “This true, Blue?”

Lance, meanwhile, was still staring at Keith like a desert-cat caught in high-beams. At the sound of his nickname, he seemed to startle out of his gaze, turning his attention back to Silver and clearing his throat. “Yes, Sir. He’s never been on a ship before.”

Keith tried not to prickle at that. It was a hell of a lucky guess, but he had hoped he was being at least _somewhat_ subtle about the novelty of all this for him.

The other boy was awarded another long, calculating look from Silver—and then the man was laughing, a low chuckle that sounded completely devoid of actual humor. “Now isn’t that mighty kind of you, Little Blue? I can count on you to keep a good eye on our friend Mister Kogane here, can’t I?”

“Yes, Sir.”

Silver smiled, and the sight of it was so off and strange on the man’s face that Keith instinctively took another step back, pressing into the banister. The huge cyborg held out a hand, and—as if he knew what was expected of him—Lance stepped forward, letting Silver ruffle his hair with his cybernetic arm. 

Something about the gesture made Keith want to be sick.

“Attaboy,” Silver purred, his tone almost mocking. “Now, I’ve got duties with the Captain; but the galley?”

Lance forced a nauseating smile onto his face—a twisted, half-hearted echo of the real thing. “All stocked and clean, Sir.”

“Deck?”

“Swept and mopped, Sir.”

Silver’s giant hand rested at the base of Lance’s neck. The touch might have looked fatherly, but something about it sent goosepimples up and down Keith’s arms. 

_Don’t touch him,_ he found himself thinking; the thought spurred by pure protective instinct.

“Kosmo?”

“Uh.” Lance froze, smile sliding off his face and voice suddenly going nervous, and—although he had no idea _why_ —Keith found himself taking a step forward. “I’m not… I thought he was with you, Sir.”

With a click of his tongue, the Quartermaster turned, assessing the deck with that sickly eye. “Blast him,” he muttered fiercely. “Probably wandering the docks and begging for scraps like a starved _mutt_. No matter.” Silver turned back to Lance, patting his shoulder. “I shall reprimand him when he returns.”

Lance swallowed, and Keith watched his Adam’s apple bob. “I’ll keep an eye out, Sir.”

“See that you do. Report to me when you’ve found him.”

“Yes, Sir.”

Keith found himself scowling at a coil of rope on the floor to his right. _Yes Sir. No Sir. Sir, sir. Sir sir sir._

He’d always had problems with authority, but this felt excessive. Authority was one thing, but adults on power-trips… Keith’s mind strayed to Iverson again, and his knuckles and wrist ached with memory.

“As for you,” Silver rumbled, and Keith glared at the toes of the man’s boots as he ground his teeth. “You’ll help Blue, and then you’re free to watch the launch. Plenty of work waiting for the both of you when we’ve set sail.”

Not trusting himself to say anything remotely polite, Keith nodded jerkily at Silver’s boots. 

In the dead silence that followed, he thought it might have been better if he’d just said something. 

The floorboards creaked as Silver took a couple slow steps forward— _one, two, three_ —until he was encroaching on Keith’s space. With a racing heart, Keith pressed himself backward, still determined not to meet the man’s eyes. 

“On this ship,” Silver began, his voice eerily calm and terrifyingly deadly, “—you’ll look your superior in the eye and speak when addressed, cabin whelp. Is that understood?”

Keith folded his arms across his chest. He knew he’d been in almost this exact same situation an hour earlier, but this felt… different. He’d never liked the empty frivolity behind the idea that he should immediately respect those in authority, but he’d found it much easier to lend it to the Captain. 

It always seemed to him—in this sort of capacity—that respect was a thing to be earned, not granted. Keith had known far too many authority figures in his life who had sailed by on what they felt was owed them; never working a day to ensure that they actually deserved the respect they were granted. Those people, in his opinion, were always the first to abuse the power they were given. They were all the same, every last one.

“Are you and I going to have a problem, boy?”

His knuckle _ached_. 

He wrenched his gaze upward, meeting a red cybernetic eye and a brown human one. “No.”

Another slow step forward. He was close enough now that Keith could smell something foul on the Quartermaster’s breath. “No… what, boy?”

Keith winced, fighting off the urge to openly gag; his jaw stubbornly sealed shut.

“ _Keith_.” Lance’s voice was a quiet hiss, but enough to draw his attention. The other boy stood at Silver’s shoulder, eyes wide and locked pleadingly onto Keith’s as if trying to convey a telepathic message.

For a few seconds, the two of them remained locked in a silent discussion that Keith did not fully understand. 

With a great sigh, Keith relented, turning back to Silver. “No, Sir,” he regurgitated, feeling like a robot stripped of all will. “We’re not going to have a problem, _Sir_.”

Silver smiled triumphantly, seemingly unbothered by the anger in Keith’s voice. The tank of a man straightened, reaching out to pat Keith on the head and releasing a booming laugh.

Keith’s insides boiled.

“Good to hear, pet. Wouldn’t want to go around making enemies, now would we?”

“No, Sir,” Keith muttered, counting the second potentially veiled threat of the day. 

“Attaboy.” Silver backed away, gaze sweeping to Lance, who was still watching the whole exchange with wide eyes. “Keep this one in check, will you?”

“Yessir.”

Silver sighed deeply, reaching up once more to clasp the side of Lance’s head. “I can always count on you, Little Blue.” His voice almost sounded fond, but Lance’s weak smile and downturned eyes sent Keith’s skin crawling.

“Always, Sir.”

Turning to give Keith one final, piercing look, Silver backed slowly away before turning on his heel and departing entirely.

Keith released a breath he had no idea he’d been holding, and from the looks of it, so did Lance. 

“He can’t talk to us like that.”

Lance laughed, bitter and wet. “Yeah, well. He can, and he will.”

“You can’t seriously be okay with that.”

“Eh. You get used to it,” the other boy shrugged, and a pang of sympathy shot through Keith’s chest.

“And if I don’t want to?”

With a sigh, Lance rubbed a hand over his face. “Look, I know you’re like, Mr. Cool and all, okay? But don’t test him, Keith. Seriously.”

“Why?” Keith stepped forward, trying to catch the other boy’s eye. “What’s he gonna do? Threaten me again?”

A frustrated sound ripped itself out of Lance’s throat. “ _Stars above_ , I forgot who I was talking to. You know what? Do whatever the fuck you want. It’s not my problem.”

He turned with a huff, striding away from Keith a couple steps before seeming to change his mind. Frozen in place, his fists batted a couple times against the sides of his thighs as if he were weighing an important decision. Before Keith could ask what was wrong, Lance was whirling back around and fixing him with a cautious gaze. “Why’d you do that?”

Keith shrugged, shoving his hands into his pockets. His fingers grazed a cool, metal surface, and he retracted the wandering digits into a tight fist. “Dunno. Do I need a reason? Guy seems like a dick.”

Lance slapped both hands over his face, muttering a muffled curse. “No, I meant—” He flapped an impatient hand. “Why’d you lie?”

Heat rose to Keith’s cheeks. “What do you mean?” he asked gruffly, despite knowing fully well what Lance was referring to. He still wasn’t sure why he’d tried to cover for someone who clearly despised him, and he wasn’t feeling inclined to figure it out at the moment.

“You know what? It doesn’t matter,” Lance mumbled, his own cheeks aflame with frustration. He took a step away, cocking his head to indicate that Keith should follow. “Let’s just find Kos and then I’ll get out of your luscious hair—”

“Lance, wait.” Keith attempted to reach for the other boy’s wrist, retracting his hand at the last second as he remembered the events in the galley. Lance’s eyes tracked the aborted motion before flicking back up to Keith’s face. “I just… about before.” 

He swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry. The colors of Lance’s eyes were so _very_ distracting. “I—I’m really not that kind of guy,” he finished, much more emphatically than he’d intended. He wasn’t sure why it was so important to him that Lance _understood_ that—understood _him_.

The look Lance gave him was long and searching, as if he were trying to read the truth behind Keith’s words from his very soul. Something—Keith thought it might have been understanding, at long last—passed between them, and Lance nodded. 

“Okay.” It was full of meaning this time, full of subtext that Keith was too tired to read; but he thought that Lance might have been saying, _I believe you_.

Then, Lance was reaching out to clap his shoulder, shattering the moment. “Still don’t like you, though.”

Letting his eyes drift shut, Keith released a long-suffering sigh. “The feeling’s mutual, don’t worry.”

… 

Kosmo found them before they found him. 

They’d searched everywhere, Lance giving him an inadvertent tour of the ship in the process. Keith had now seen the barracks, the mess hall, long-boat storage, and even the engine room; but whoever—or _what_ ever—they were searching for was nowhere to be found. 

Clambering wearily up the last few steps back onto the deck from the engine room, Lance released a mighty groan, and Keith sighed in agreement. 

“Unbelievable,” Lance grumbled, smacking his hands over his face and draping himself dramatically along the ship’s banister. “M’ gonna have a heart attack.”

“Who _is_ Kosmo, anyway?” Keith muttered grumpily, finally caving to the question he’d wanted to ask for the past fifteen minutes. He’d held off till now; partly because he didn’t want Lance’s mounting ire turned on _him_ , and partly because their encounter with Silver hadn’t exactly left him in the most upstanding mood. 

Lance dragged his hands down his face, fingers pulling at his lower eyelids till they looked grotesque. “The bane of my existence,” he groaned. “And also the love of my life.”

Keith felt heat inexplicably rise to his cheeks. “Uh…”

“It’s a complicated relationship.” Lance dismissed with a wave of his hand. 

_… relationship?_

“Oh,” Keith slowly responded, hoping he didn’t look as confused as he felt. “Is he… your boyfriend, or something?” he asked haltingly.

The responding laugh was almost a shout, startling Keith so badly that he jumped. From his position draped over the banister, Lance’s head flopped over so that he was grinning crookedly at Keith with twinkling eyes.

Feeling strongly like he was about to be teased, Keith scowled, folding his arms and looking away. 

“Yeah, totally,” Lance giggled, sounding somewhat delirious. The sound of his laugh made Keith’s face feel even hotter. “His hair is even thicker than yours.”

Keith rolled his eyes, resisting the urge to reach up to touch his ponytail. “Okay…?”

Cheeks red with laughter, Lance spread both hands in front of him as if setting the scene for an elaborate story. “I’m telling you, Keith—he’s got the dreamiest blue eyes you’ve ever seen, _and_ —” Lance leaned forward, lowering his voice conspiratorially and bringing a hand to the side of his face as if to hide a secret. “He kisses with _tongue_.”

“Ugh.” Keith leaned away, wrinkling his nose as Lance winked at him. He was pretty sure that his face was literally on fire at this point. “Don’t be gross.”

Lance ignored him, sighing dreamily as he clutched a hand to his heart, touching the back of his cybernetic hand to his forehead. “If it were up to me, we’d just cuddle. Every second of every day.”

“Okay, I _get it_ ,” Keith snapped. “You’re in love and whatever. Is he—are we—is he another cabin boy?” 

“ _Yeah_ he is. The _best_ boy.”

“Is he gonna—quit smiling at me like that, it’s fucking weird. Is he gonna sleep in the galley?” he asked, somewhat scared of the answer. Sharing a room with Lance alone was bad enough; but sharing sleeping quarters with Lance and his… his _lover_ … 

Lance gagged in response. “ _Stars_ , no. He usually sleeps up on deck. That boy’s farts could kill a rakk hive.”

“I don’t know what that is,” Keith deadpanned.

The other boy flapped a hand. “Doesn’t matter. All you need to know is—”

He cut himself off, eyes widening as they fixed on something behind Keith, who followed Lance’s gaze to find—

Nothing but the crew rushing about the deck. 

Wondering what sort of trick Lance was playing, Keith turned back to him with a scowl, only to find the other boy already grinning at him. 

“Speak of the devil. You ready to meet him?”

Keith narrowed his eyes, not trusting the wild glint in Lance’s. “I gue—” 

He never finished the word. 

One second he was standing, Lance’s stupid, crooked smirk inches from his face. The next, all the air had been knocked out of him and he was staring up at eyes bluer than the sky, blue-grey fur filling his vision. He was vaguely aware of Lance cackling as whatever the _fuck_ was on him— _dog_ , he thought distantly, nearly unable to parse the thought from his panic striken brain—licked relentlessly at every exposed part of his face and neck, trailing long lines of slobber up past his hairline and slicking back his bangs.

There was a shift of movement above him, and then Lance’s face was squished beside the dog’s, grinning down at Keith like he’d just delivered the punchline to his favorite joke. “Haircut, meet Kosmo. Kosmo, haircut.”

As if he’d understood, Kosmo yipped happily before continuing to bathe him in affection. 

“Kosmo is a dog,” Keith wheezed, struggling and pushing against thick fur in an attempt to ward off another onslaught of kisses. “Kosmo is a _huge fucking dog_.”

Lance laughed, open and bright, and the sound was too much for Keith’s overloaded senses. “Cosmic wolf, actually. Found him in the Asteria Cluster on a great-whale; he was just a puppy then, but—”

“ _Lance_ ,” Keith whimpered as the over-excited wolf trod right over his balls, sending his voice skyrocketing upward in pitch. “ _Gethimoffme_.”

Taking mercy on him, Lance straightened, sticking two fingers in his mouth and whistling sharply. Kosmo barked in excitement, spinning around before hopping off of Keith, who felt as if he’d been hit by a sand-speeder.

After taking a second to just lie there, Keith groaned, pushing himself up onto his elbows to watch the giant wolf prance around Lance like an untrained puppy. 

“The hell is wrong with you today, huh? Scarin’ me like that… I looked everywhere for you, you little jerk.” 

The not-so-little jerk in question released a booming bark in response, and Lance clicked his tongue just as Keith decided to help himself to his feet, eyes still trained on the pair. 

“Nuh-uh, mister; I don’t wanna hear it. Got an earful from Silver because of you.”

Kosmo whimpered, raising his front legs onto Lance’s chest and attempting to lick at his face. “ _No_ ,” Lance complained, squirming as he attempted to turn his head. “Not the face, you _know_ I hate the face—Kosmo, _down_ —”

“Can he understand you?” Keith blurted, watching with rapt fascination as Kosmo whimpered once more before lowering back to all fours. It felt like a stupid question the moment it left his mouth, and his face flushed under that multi-colored stare. 

“Not sure,” Lance eventually sighed, seeming to know what Keith meant. He turned back to the wolf, who was now sitting politely on his haunches, watching them as if following their conversation. Lance sank a hand into the thick fur around Kosmo’s neck, and the wolf turned to nuzzle into his palm. “Like I said, we found him when he was a baby, so he might just… understand us now?”

Keith merely nodded, reluctant to say anything else—not when Lance finally seemed to be opening up to him.

“I dunno, though,” the other boy continued, lost in thought as he stroked through coarse fur. “Cosmic wolves _are_ classified as higher intelligence, you know? I mean, he’s _definitely_ smarter than any dog I’ve ever had.”

Keith blinked, mentally grasping onto that nugget of information like a lifeline. “You… have a dog?” he asked delicately; tentatively—still terrified to shatter their moment.

It was— _apparently_ —the wrong thing to say (but then again, it was apparent that anything Keith chose to say around Lance seemed like _the wrong thing to say_.) He immediately regretted opening his mouth, wishing that he’d trusted all the instincts warning him against it.

In the span of a second, all emotion drained from Lance’s face, his features going smooth and cold as marble; a hollow imitation of what they’d been seconds before. Keith watched as his eyes shut—ever so briefly—before fixing back on the wolf at his feet. “Can you find Silver, buddy?” he asked, ignoring Keith’s question altogether. “Let him know you’re onboard, okay?”

Frowning, Keith folded his arms, trying to ignore the stinging in his chest and feeling stupid for feeling hurt.

 _What the hell are you doing, asking about his life? Just because you managed not to fight for five fucking seconds doesn’t mean you’re_ friends _._

As if sensing Keith’s inner turmoil, Kosmo whimpered, trotting over to nudge at his elbow. Keith blinked down at the wolf in surprise, beginning to unfurl his arms to seek the wolf’s comfort—

“Kos! Silver. _Now_.” Lance’s voice was sharp, tinged with a fridgedness that sounded foreign in contrast to the boisterous, mirth-filled boy from moments before. 

Kosmo huffed and grumbled, warm breath ghosting over Keith’s hand.

“I’m okay,” Keith muttered, staring into eyes filled with understanding. “You should go.” 

With a final little nudge, Kosmo licked Keith’s hand in parting before backing away and—

Vanishing. Into thin air.

Keith gaped at the spot an entire _wolf_ had just occupied, his jaw hanging open. “I—what just—”

“He teleports,” Lance responded flatly. 

Too stunned to give the other boy’s tone much importance, Keith whirled around to search the deck, his eyes eventually landing on Kosmo as he pranced around Silver’s feet several yards away. 

His eyes blown wide with adoration, Keith resisted the urge to sink to his knees. “He _teleports_?”

“S’ what I said, yeah,” came Lance’s snippy response. 

This time, the cyborg’s tone was enough to break Keith from his spell. He turned, attempting to meet Lance’s eyes; but the other boy seemed determined not to return his gaze. 

“What crawled up _your_ ass and died?”

Although still pointedly avoiding focusing on Keith, Lance’s eyes narrowed. “Ex _cuse_ me?”

“You heard me,” Keith growled. “The fuck’s your problem?”

Cold eyes finally met his, and Keith found himself foolish for ever having wished that they would.

“ _You’re_ my problem, Kogane,” he hissed, taking care to slam their shoulders together as he departed. “Get with the program.”

… 

“We are all clear, Captain!”

“ALL HANDS TO STATIONS!”

“Out of the bloody way, boy—”

“ _Move if ye know what’s good fer ye_ —”

“LOOSE THE SOLAR SAILS! BRACE UP!”

“You want to lose an eye, cabin rat? _WATCH YOUR STEP_ —”

“Blast it all, I’ve seen great-whales that be takin’ up less bloomin’ _space_ —”

Keith gasped with exertion, stumbling wildly back and forth across the deck as he tried to figure out how to make himself as small and inconspicuous as possible. It had only been a few minutes since Lance had ditched him, disappearing off to who-knows-where to be a moody asshole and leaving Keith to fend for himself amidst the chaos of the launch. Since then, he’d nearly been speared by a whaling bow, narrowly missed collision with a rotating beam, and just barely avoided being thrown overboard by several frustrated crewmembers. He had no idea what to do, and even less of an idea as to where he was needed—or indeed, what he was needed _for_.

All in all, he was feeling pretty lost by the time an achingly familiar voice called his name. 

The sight of his cousin sitting comfortably atop the ship’s prow—smiling warmly and waving a hand in greeting—was almost enough to bring tears of relief to his eyes. Ducking to avoid another beam, Keith practically ran, only barely managing to avoid flinging himself into his cousin’s inviting arms. 

He tried not to wince when Shiro looked disappointed—but Keith couldn’t bring himself to engage in such a vulnerable display of affection; not in front of this strange crew, not in front of—

 _He’s not even here,_ he told himself, glowering out at the open sky. _Fuck him._

“I dropped your rucksack off in the galley, by the way.”

Grunting in affirmation, Keith hoisted himself up and onto the ledge beside his cousin, who after a small silence clicked his tongue.

“Uh oh. I know _that_ face.”

“What face,” Keith grumbled, jaw tight. “There’s no face.”

“Keith.” 

When he turned to look, Shiro was looking at him with unbridled love, reaching out to place a hand on his shoulder. “You’re my best friend, bud. I know the face.” He smiled sympathetically, and Keith’s insides rolled with guilt, tears of anger pricking at his eyes. This wasn’t supposed to be happening—today was supposed to be a fresh start; conversations like this weren’t supposed to happen—

“It was you, wasn’t it?”

Keith’s eyebrows knitted together. “What?”

“You were the one who bumped into Lance. Earlier on the dock.”

Sighing, Keith looked away, unable to hold eye contact any longer. “Yeah.”

“Stars, Keith.” 

“It wasn’t like I meant to! It was a fucking _accident_ , and now he hates me, and I just—” he groaned, letting his head drop into his hands. “This whole thing is a disaster.”

Shiro was silent for so long that Keith peeked back out from behind his hands, finding his cousin staring pensively out into space. 

“Can you just say something? Please?”

With a thoughtful hum, Shiro scratched absentmindedly at his jaw. “He didn’t tell me it was you, you know. Heard him tell the same story to two other people, too—didn’t mention your name once.”

“... So?”

“ _So._ ” Shiro stood, stretching out his back like a cat that had just been napping in a sun-beam. “If he really hated you, I think he’d be trying a _little_ harder to make your life miserable.”

Keith opened his mouth to object, and Shiro held up a hand. “I’m not saying he likes you, necessarily—but I think you two might have just started out on the wrong foot.”

Resisting the urge to roll his eyes, Keith mumbled, “Hell of a wrong foot,” and Shiro snorted. 

“Isn’t that the truth. Little birdy told me you didn’t even _apologize_.”

“Oh yeah?” Keith growled, hackles rising in defense as he stood. “Well, I guess little birdy conveniently left out the part where he was a massive _dick_ about the whole thing. So. No apologies granted.”

“Keith, darling—”

“Don’t,” Keith snapped, whirling on his cousin with fire boiling under his skin. “I hate it when you do that.”

“I’m just trying to—”

“I know what you’re trying to do, Shiro, and I don’t want it, alright? You’re not _him_ , I don’t—I don’t _need_ two dads, okay? The one’s enough.”

Shiro swallowed thickly, his eyes going glassy. “Okay. You’re right. I’m sorry.”

Keith’s stomach sank. “Stars, Shiro. Come on, man; _please_ don’t cry.”

“I’m not,” Shiro mumbled, turning his head to try to discreetly wipe away a tear. “I’m just—if something happens to you out here, I don’t—I won’t know what to tell Dad—”

 _Dad._ A term that Shiro only openly used to refer to Owen Kogane when he was feeling particularly vulnerable; particularly scared.

Fuck the crew. Fuck Lance. Fuck what anyone else had to say or think.

Keith threw himself at his cousin, wrapping him in a unyielding embrace and burying his face in the elder’s chest. Strong arms held him right back, bracing his head and upper back. 

“You and me,” Keith started, willing his voice to remain steady. “Are gonna make it back to Dad safe and sound, okay? We got each other’s back.”

Shiro nodded against the top of his head, squeezing him closer and choking back a sob. “I love you _so_ _much_.”

“Love you too, Shiro.” After a couple seconds of consideration, Keith cleared his throat. “And I’m sorry I—”

“ _Keith_ ,” his cousin breathed, cutting off his uncharacteristic apology. “You might wanna look up.”

Frowning, Keith pushed himself away, hands sliding to Shiro’s forearms. “What— _oh_. _Shit_.”

Around them, the world was moving. 

Buildings were sinking, rooftops and spires disappearing below the ship’s hull. To their right, a flock of disgruntled gull-swallows took flight in a flurry of white; the ship’s ascent disturbing them from their comfortable perch atop a chimney. Squawking and tittering in complaint, they rushed the ship as a unit, gliding along sails that rippled with wind and swooping amongst the crew with reckless abandon. 

As the flock swept past the cousins—who both gaped at the scene in childlike wonder—Keith registered that for the first time since he’d left the Benbow that morning, he was well and truly _happy_. He hadn’t a care in the world, because right then?

Nothing mattered.

Nothing mattered save for the flight of birds and the untamed smile on his cousin’s face and the invigorating rush of life pumping through his veins like _electricity_.

A laugh bubbled out of him—wild, and _free_ , and so unlike him altogether that it drew the attention of Shiro, whose giddy smile turned unbearably fond. Returning it with a dopey grin of his own, Keith rushed toward the prow, hands splayed over wood as he peered over the edge at the ever-shrinking port down below. Wind pricked at his eyes until Keith had to blink away tears, yet he couldn’t bring himself to tear his gaze away.

On the docks down below, tourists and passengers were stopping to watch the _Melenor’s_ ascent, children grasping at their mother’s sleeves as they pointed excitedly. One of them waved, and Keith—not quite knowing what had suddenly gotten into himself—waved back, his cheeks starting to ache with the force of his smile. 

“What do you think?” Shiro’s voice asked at his side. A warm hand landed gently on his back, and Keith leaned into the touch, looking up at his cousin with shining eyes.

“It’s everything I’ve ever wanted,” was his honest answer. The winds of the Etherium whipped at his hair, and Keith allowed his eyes to drift shut as he inhaled deeply. 

Beside him, Shiro chuckled, the sound warm and devoid of teasing. “I wish you could see yourself right now.”

Cracking his eyes open, Keith cast his cousin a curious look. In response, Shiro simply smiled, brushing Keith’s wind-blown bangs out of his face. 

A sharp whistle behind them shattered the peace of their moment, and Shiro’s smile turned into a knowing grin. “You’re gonna want to keep your feet under you, okay? No sudden movements, or you’ll get twisted in the air and falling will _suck_.”

“What are y— _WHOA_!” 

Keith attempted not to panic as his feet slowly left the ground, the toes of his boots slowly scraping against the deck as his whole body went weightless. His brain scrambled to remember his Garrison training, and his surprise ebbed away as muscle memory took its place; years of simulations returning to him all at once. 

_Feet underneath you, cadet!_ Iverson’s voice echoed through his memories like the reverberations of a gong. _Keep still, ‘less you’d like to break a limb!_

Years later, an entire moon away from Vaarta City and Iverson and the Garrison, Keith obeyed. As the ship rose high above the Spaceport and left the moon’s natural gravity, he took special care to remain vertical, easing all the tension out of his body one muscle at a time. 

From a couple feet away, Shiro shot him a careful thumbs up, a seasoned enough sailor that the movement did not throw off his balance. “Good form, Keith!”

Keith, meanwhile, couldn’t do much more than look at him with wide eyes and an uninhibited, slightly manic grin that made Shiro burst into laughter. “You got this man, you’re doing—”

“ENGAGE ARTIFICIAL GRAVITY!” someone shouted behind them.

A low hum filled the air as the ship’s gravity activated, and Keith had barely just remembered to keep his knees soft before he was falling, his body growing heavy once more. To his delight, he managed to land in a crouch, fingers grazing the deck as he steadied himself. 

He straightened with a smirk and looked to Shiro for appraisal, who awarded him with light applause. Keith clutched a hand to his chest as he bowed. “Thank you, thank you. I’ll literally be here all… _okay_.”

Enraptured by the sight before him, Keith’s words died pathetically, lost to the wind swirling around his face. Bright blue sky was slowly darkening to deep blue, threads of purple nebulas woven through glittering stars. The Spaceport sank farther and farther away, it’s crescent shape becoming defined with distance. With a graceful surge of wings, the last vestiges of gulls swept down from the ship’s beams, diving serenely down to the moon below. 

Another whistle filled the air, low and long, and Keith sent Shiro an inquisitive glance. His cousin was already moving, grasping at the rope rigging along the side of the ship. “They’re gonna engage the thrusters; I’d hold on to something!” 

Keith immediately obeyed, grasping the wooden banister in front of him with both hands—and not a second too soon. Beneath his feet, the ship rumbled as if coming to life; and then they were blasting forward, leaving the moon Crescentia far behind them. Keith yelled euphorically, his heart leaping into his throat and feeling all at once too large to be contained by his body. 

_I’m home,_ he thought—even as they slowed to a moderate clip, Keith releasing his death grip on the bow’s banister. Hit by a sudden desire to be _closer_ —to touch and feel and _taste_ —Keith scrambled past Shiro and up onto the ship’s side, yanking himself up by the rope rigging. Ignoring his cousin’s warnings and pleas for caution, Keith shimmied himself along the outside of the ship, gripping the sturdy rigging and using it to turn himself until he was suspended over the vast void of space.

“Keith, if you fall, I swear to the _stars_ I’ll kill you.”

Ripping his eyes away from the swirling colors of the Etherium, Keith looked down and slightly behind him, meeting his cousin’s gaze far below. He had no idea what his face looked like, but whatever expression he was making was enough to curb Shiro’s irritation, the elder’s face falling into fond resignation. “Alright, alright. Just—be careful, you jackass.”

Keith barely heard the words, already turning back to the stars, his fists tightening and loosening around the ropes in succession. His grip on the rigging was the only thing keeping him from falling face-forward into the Etherium and floating away forever; and the thought sent a thrill of _danger_ through him, making him grin in delirium.

_I’m home._

There were not enough words to describe it, Keith thought. Not enough words in his language or any to describe the wholeness coursing through his blood; nor the ache of his heart as it strained in his chest, reaching out to unite with the sight before him. 

There were not enough words to describe the way his soul sang, all at once complete and found and _seen_ and wanting—for the first time in his life—for nothing.

The wind curled around him, and Keith closed his eyes, savoring its embrace. “Hi,” he choked out, the word falling so short of the love bursting through his being. 

As if in response, something enormous moaned beneath him. Well-familiar with the sound (his mind conjured up sacred memories of sleepless nights and nature sleep-tracks), Keith’s eyes shot open, tears finally spilling from their corners as he beheld the pod of juvenile great-whales surrounding the _Melenor_. As they passed, an incredulous and tearful giggle slipped from Keith’s mouth; and he stared awestruck at the enormous underbelly of the whale passing atop their ship, it’s body at least triple the length of the _Melenor_.

In front of him, one whale came close enough that the two of them made eye contact as it passed; it’s wrinkly, giant unblinking eye examining Keith with mild interest as it drifted by on the etherium’s currents. Without thinking, Keith reached out a hand, extending the arm still gripping the rigging until he was hovering precariously away from the ship—reaching and reaching until his fingertips were barely brushing against coarse grey skin, and—

“And what do you think you are doing, Mister Kogane?”

Keith yelped, startling so badly that he nearly lost his grip on the rigging altogether. Muscles coiling with tension, he pulled himself in toward the rope netting, turning back toward the ship and threading his arms through the rope patchwork as he clung to it like a terrified kitten. His heart hammered madly, and he tried his best not to scowl down at the Captain below. 

“Just… looking, ma’am.”

Striking blue eyes searched his face—for _what_ , Keith wasn’t sure—before she was giving a curt nod. “You’re to come down immediately, and you’re not to _footle_ about on the rigging until you’ve had the proper training. Am I understood?”

“What’s your problem with me?”

The question left his mouth before he could stop it, and Keith inwardly cursed his permanently broken filter, scanning the deck for Shiro as the Captain’s eyes narrowed; but his cousin was nowhere to be found.

“While I admire your spirit, Mister Kogane,” she started, her voice icy, “—I believe it is time that you and I had a talk. In private, if you please.” She stepped back, gesturing with a graceful arm to her private cabin at the back of the ship.

Keith swallowed thickly, feeling the walls he’d built up over the years (that had lowered for one blissful moment) build back up protectively around his heart. “Am I in trouble?” he asked, his face slipping into an indifferent mask.

The Captain’s eyes were little more than slits, and the frostiness of her tone sent a chill up Keith’s spine. 

“That, Mr. Kogane, remains to be seen.”

… 

When the two of them stepped into the Captain’s quarters, Shiro was in deep discussion with Coran, who’s eyes lit with excitement as they entered. “Keith, my boy! Just the lad we’ve been waiting for!”

Keith frowned, his gaze meeting Shiro’s. His cousin shrugged at him, Keith’s apprehension mirrored in his face.

“Please,” Coran urged, gesturing to the seats in front of the Captain’s desk. “Make yourselves comfortable!”

The cousins exchanged another look before stepping forward and lowering themselves to the chairs, Keith leaning toward Shiro and lowering his voice to a whisper. “Where’d you go?”

Though his cousin looked calm and composed, Keith could see the gears whirring behind his analytical eyes. “Captain came to collect me,” he muttered in response, watching the Captain like a hawk as she joined Coran behind the desk, settling into a high-backed chair next to his. “You were… a little out of it.”

Before Keith could respond, the Captain was leaning forward, folding her hands together as she brought them to rest on her desk. “Before we begin, I’d like to designate my quarters a safe space for the sensitive topic at hand. Any further discussion shall not leave the confines of this room. Do I make myself _very_ clear?”

Shiro nodded gravely. “You have my word, Captain.”

All eyes turned to Keith, and he swallowed. “Mine too,” he hurried. “ _Ma’am_.”

“Very good.” She nodded, inhaling deeply as she unfurled her hands, splaying her palms out on the desk. “In that case, I suppose it’s time I cut to the chase.”

Her eyes locked onto Keith’s, and his heart felt like it might rocket out of his chest.

“I’d like a word about the item you carry in your pocket.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading, all! Drop a kudo or a comment if you can - I'd love to hear from y'all! 
> 
> If you have any questions for me or would just like to chat, you can always shoot me a message on [Tumblr!](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/barnes-n-romanoff)

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading - hope you enjoyed it! Again, I'm hoping to have the next chapter up in two weeks... tune in then to see Keith make a couple life-changing decisions, and for some Adam/Shiro fluff <3 In the meantime, feel free to leave kudos or comments! See you all next time!


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